Now that relations between the U.S. and North Korea finally appear to be advancing (and on U.S. terms!) thanks to President Trump, it’s safe to say his critics in the media should be ignored from here on out when it comes to foreign policy.
The national media spent this past fall consoling themselves after Trump said at the United Nations General Assembly that the U.S. would “totally destroy North Korea” should it attack America or its allies.
Though USA Today called Trump’s remarks “unsettling” and ABC News anchor Terry Moran said they nearly amounted to “the threat of committing a war crime,” it looks like they may have worked.
South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-Yong announced Thursday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un wants to meet with Trump “as soon as possible,” that he’s now “committed to denuclearization” and said he will postpone nuclear missile tests at least until a meeting can take place.
Trump agreed to a meeting by May. And by the way, the U.S. gave up nothing in exchange for the meeting and the stall in missile tests.
There’s no telling how this will end, but most people would agree it’s a positive development after decades of nothing but hostilities from the tiny Asian country that operates less like a nation and more like a prison for its starving people.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, however, is not most people. Immediately after the announcement, Kristof called it “a dangerous gamble and a bad idea,” despite (by his own admission) having called precisely for this kind of engagement earlier.
It was only in September that Kristof flew to Pyongyang himself and, after posting Instagram photos of Koreans “shouting happily” on an amusement park ride, as well as a pizza dinner he got to enjoy, he wrote a column in his own cute attempt at creating an understanding of the Kim regime.
“[W]e need talks without conditions, if only talks about talks,” Kristof wrote at the end of his trip. “I’d suggest a secret visit to Pyongyang by a senior administration official, as well as discussions with North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations.”
In five months’ time, Kristof went from proposing “talks” to calling them “a bad idea.” What changed his mind?
He explained in his column Thursday that he had newfound reservations about the diplomatic engagement because “Kim and Trump are both showmen with a flair for the dramatic and unexpected,” which “creates great risks if everything turns out wrong.”
So he believes in the “talks,” but doesn’t think Trump should get the credit for being the one to do it.
If the meeting between Trump and Kim is successful, this administration gets the credit, no matter how loath the media will be to admit it. The Washington Post couldn’t help itself. Its front page headline on Friday read, “Trump agrees to talk with Kim Jong Un.” Things could be left there, but the Post continued, “President’s bellicosity secures a diplomatic coup — for now.”
Here’s an alternative headline suggestion: “Trump sees early results on North Korea after decades of increasing tensions and no solutions.”
In November, Max Boot wrote in the New York Daily News that Trump’s policies and rhetoric toward North Korea “hasn’t worked.”
After Thursday’s announcement, no doubt depressed that he was wrong, the Washington Post afforded him what would otherwise be useful space to say that Trump “doesn’t know what he is doing.”
Of course. When something doesn’t work out the way the media said it would, it’s Trump who was wrong, not them.
On Russia, the administration must have scoliosis with the way it has twisted itself trying to improve relations with the Kremlin — which the Obama administration tried to do for eight years — and at the same time keep the media from calling Trump a traitor for describing Russian President Vladimir Putin “very much of a leader.”
Trump can’t say the word “Russia” without Democrats and the media calling for a new investigation. The administration canceled planned talks for late February on cybersecurity with Russia, presumably because even Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have criticized Trump for the engagement.
On Tuesday, Washington Post foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius said it was “a mistake” for the U.S. to withdraw from discussions with Russia. He said it was “unwise” to cancel the cybersecurity meeting, and that, “Just because Putin proposes renewed discussions with the U.S., that doesn’t mean it is a bad idea.”
And yet, just in December, Ignatius complained that Trump had been too eager to connect with Putin. “There is a growing, mostly undisputed body of evidence describing contacts between Trump associates and Russia-linked operatives,” he wrote. A month before, he described Trump’s “fascination, bordering on obsession, with Russian business deals,” as though it were unseemly for Trump to have pursued business in another country. (Someone tell Ignatius there are Trump-branded properties in Canada, Panama, Ireland, and Scotland among other places.)
In the end, Trump is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, and there is no other way when this is the kind of logic he’s up against.
And that’s why when it comes to foreign policy, the national media deserve no attention.
