There’s tough negotiating, and then, there’s President Trump.
That he’s trying to get North Korea to denuclearize is good. The way he’s going about it, however, is where he deserves criticism.
Whichever way this episode shakes out, Trump’s choice to treat the Hermit Kingdom’s murderous tyrant, Kim Jong Un, as a legitimate and even benevolent ruler will leave an indelible stain on America’s reputation as a county that prizes liberty above all else.
I understand the president badly wants this nuclear deal. I also understand those who claim he is being diplomatic. But there is a chasm between being diplomatic and showering a cruel tyrant with ludicrous and undeserved praise.
[Related: Obama’s Iran negotiator was ‘taken aback’ by one particular sight at Trump and Kim’s meeting]
Trump’s behavior here is no less shameful than when Franklin Delano Roosevelt sought to humanize Joseph Stalin. FDR and Trump actually have quite a lot in common in the area of sidling up to dictators. In fact, according to historian Gary Kern, FDR embraced Stalin for many of the same reasons that Trump’s defenders say the current president is coddling Kim:
Compare this to Trump, who this week called Kim “a great personality. He’s a funny guy, he’s very smart, he’s a great negotiator. He loves his people.”
The president continued, telling reporters that Kim is “a very talented man.”
“Anybody who takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it, and run it tough [is very talented],” Trump said, clarifying, “I [didn’t] say it was nice.”
“His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor,” the president said.
This isn’t the first time that Trump has gone out of his way to humanize Kim.
In May, following the release of three American hostages from North Korea, the president said, “We want to thank Kim Jong Un, who really was excellent to these three incredible people.”
Earlier, in April, he said that Kim “really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we’re seeing.”
The efficacy of cozying up to brutal tyrants aside, there’s the moral issue that the U.S. ought not to give an implicit stamp of approval to brutal murderers. This is to say nothing of the fact that the Trump team chose to largely avoid discussing Kim’s many human rights violations.
We’re supposed to be a beacon of freedom and the standard-bearer of liberty.
Let’s try acting like it.
