North Korea’s Leader Moves the Football and Trump Blinks

I feel I should kick this piece off by reminding everyone that Donald Trump’s 1987 bestseller, “The Art of the Deal” was penned by a ghostwriter by the name of Tony Schwartz.

Schwartz has since stepped forward to apologize to the world for creating a work of fiction, designed to make Donald Trump seem like a competent, savvy businessman.

He’s not, especially in comparison to other billionaire businessmen, like Warren Buffett, or Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

Trump has had multiple bankruptcies and branding flops (think: Trump steaks), but was saved by his trademark ridiculous hair and a reality TV show.

He rode pop fame and a declining moral thread on the voting right straight to the presidency.

And now he’s got the platform of a lifetime, and the spotlight is on his actual ability to negotiate for the wellbeing of something more than a single organization.

This deal could mean the lives of millions of people, and no ghostwriter is going to shine this one up.

So for all those Trump fans who were planning your watch parties for the moment President Trump is awarded his own Nobel Peace Prize, maybe just go on with your lives as best you can, because the brass ring just got moved back a few feet.

I also have to point out that the great negotiator is being outplayed and out-dealt by the mercurial leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un.

After months of fiery back and forth, with Trump lashing out on social media, calling Kim “little rocket man,” and Kim firing back, using the term, “dotard” to describe the president, Kim suddenly changed course, offering an olive branch.

A public show of unity with South Korea turned into an invitation to talks and peace with Trump.

Many (myself being one of them) warned that this was a trick. North Korea has offered peace before, usually in order to get some concessions, like relaxed sanctions.

It has been years since a sitting U.S. president was willing to give the rogue nation the legitimacy it or its despotic leader craves.

Trump jumped at the opportunity to “make history.” His ego dictated his actions.

On Wednesday, North Korea’s Kim pulled that football away, citing military drills between the United States and South Korea.

They cancelled their upcoming peace talks with South Korea, and now threaten to bail on the scheduled summit with the U.S. – especially if talk of giving up their nuclear program is still on the table.

And Trump seems to be blinking.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said he is “willing to do a lot” to offer Kim “protections” if the North Korean leader agrees to surrender his nuclear weapons.

“He will get protections that are very strong,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with NATO’s secretary-general. “The best thing he could do is make a deal.”

The best thing he could do for Trump’s ego.

Actually, the world is safer when men like Kim Jong Un are neutralized and kept at bay. His own people are living broken, and the rest of the world holds its breath, in fear of a nuclear North Korea.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump is not the kind of man who knows the next move on what has turned out to be Kim’s game of 4-dimensional chess.

In the meantime, Washington rolls along, as if the summit is still happening.

“Our people are literally dealing with them right now in terms of making arrangements, so that’s a lot different than what you read, but oftentimes what you read, if it’s not fake news, is true,” he said.

Yes, that’s right. If something isn’t fake, then it’s true.

I wouldn’t look for the intellectual wordplay with Trump to get much more intricate, which is why any negotiating with Kim would be better worked out through an intermediary.

Maybe not John Bolton.

Bolton has barely had a moment to get his backside accustomed to H.R. McMaster’s seat as national security adviser and he’s already burnt Kim’s biscuits.

Bolton suggested a “Libya model” for a denuclearized North Korea.

Eight years after agreeing to denuclearize, then-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was forced out of power by NATO. He was then captured, tortured, and killed in 2011.

Kim sees North Korea’s nuclear program as the cement that keeps him in power.

Trump is already cutting the legs out from under Bolton by publicly contradicting him, saying the deal he’s willing to give Kim is nothing like the deal President Bush made with Libya in 2003.

That deal required Gadhafi give up his nuclear and chemical stockpiles, in exchange for sanctions relief. It said nothing about Gadhafi giving up power.

“The Libyan model isn’t a model that we have at all when we are thinking of North Korea,” Trump said. “In Libya we decimated that country. That country was decimated. There was no deal to keep Gadhafi. The Libyan model that was mentioned was a much different deal.”

It was a different deal, dealing with a different kind of leader.

Trump is now promising that Kim can stay in power, and that his nation could be made “very rich.”

Watch for Kim to continue to bait the hook, and Trump will continue to bite.

Before it’s over, American taxpayers will be paying for the rebuilding of Kim’s nuclear facilities, and Trump will be telling us why it’s the deal of the century for us.