News Out of North Korea: NO Denuclearization

Who didn’t see this one coming?

No one who has even an elementary knowledge of current events, or of the basics of our relationship with North Korea through the years is going to be surprised by this.

This is where I point out that those who fell for the publicity stunt that went down during the summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are gullible rubes.

North Korea has a history of making, then breaking promises of denuclearization. They’ve never had a sitting U.S. president dumbly give them legitimacy by meeting with them, then later gushing over the oppressive leadership, either.

Donald Trump sent the exact wrong message to the world by giving Kim Jong Un a forum. He doubled down on it by coming home and praising a man who starves and enslaves his own people.

So what did President Trump actually get out of this charade?

Not much.

Radio Free Asia is reporting that the main point of the summit – denuclearization – was, just as we knew, nothing more than a ploy.

According to RFA:

The Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party has decreed that North Korea will not relinquish its nuclear arsenal, which it termed a “precious legacy” of the country’s late leaders, according to local sources, despite an earlier pledge by party chairman Kim Jong Un to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

That’s “will not,” as in Trump’s ego walked him into another losing proposition.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has attempted to carry on with talks, only to be rebuffed by reports that North Korean officials considered those attempts at negotiations to be “thuggish.”

Besides those unsuccessful attempts at negotiations, there is evidence that China is still supplying North Korea with fuel, helping to ease the pressure from international sanctions.

So we can stop counting on China as a partner in forcing North Korea to do the right thing.

A source from North Korea’s North Hamgyong province, along the border with China, recently told RFA’s Korean Service that the country’s leadership cabal has no intention of entirely ditching the nuclear program it had taken decades to build.

“In early July, there was a meeting for the core membership of high-ranking party officials from provincial organizations, party secretaries, and managers from business firms … to deliver policy from the Central Committee regarding the current political situation,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The last speaker who ended the six-hour-long meeting emphasized that ‘nuclear is a precious legacy from the late leaders’ and ‘if there is no nuclear, there is death,’” he said.

It’s a legacy that began with Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in the 1950s, when they first acquired the knowledge to kick off their nuclear program. The first nuclear weapon was tested in 2006. They’re not looking to give that up.

The opinions on this new revelation are mixed.

“Some agree that ‘without nuclear there will be death’ and some say that it is breaking a promise to the U.S. and the international community,” the source said.

“The high-ranking party officials were listening to the speakers at the meeting because they were trying to determine whether Kim Jong Un really doesn’t intend to give up nuclear weapons or if it was just part of a ploy to gain leverage in [international] negotiations over the denuclearization process,” he said.

“This is the first time since the U.S.-North Korea summit … that the Central Committee officially declared at a high-ranking party officials’ meeting that nuclear is a legacy from the late leaders, but it could simply be an ideological statement aimed at tightening discipline among the ranks.”

Some are also suggesting that what the U.S. considers denuclearization and what North Korea considers denuclearization may not necessarily be the same thing.

So here we are, with no progress made.

The only difference now from what was before is that a chaotic, dysfunctional U.S. presidency has given the rogue nation’s tyrannical leadership legitimacy on the world stage.

And the world is little less safe, because of it.