In just the past week, North Korea has unveiled a brand new submarine that could potentially launch nuclear weapons and tested two short-range missiles that gravely threaten US allies South Korea and Japan.
Trump is letting Kim Jong Un do almost anything he wants
Missile tests. Building provocative submarines. It’s all good.
The casual observer might understandably expect President Donald “fire and fury” Trump and his hawkish administration to respond forcefully to these new provocations. But the opposite has happened: They’re taking the barrage with a degree of calm virtually unseen before from this administration.
In fact, they’re actively downplaying — and in some cases even defending — North Korea’s actions.
For instance, on Thursday, Fox News’s Brett Baier asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about Kim showing off his shiny new (and potentially extremely deadly) submarine and whether that kind of thing makes it harder to reach a deal with North Korea.
Pompeo’s response was stunning: “I went to a defense facility,” he said flatly. “We all go look at our militaries, and we all take pictures of them.”
America’s top diplomat equating his own routine visits to US military sites with a North Korean dictator posing for propaganda photos meant to send threatening signals to Washington and its allies is ... unusual, to say the least.
Hours later, Trump expressed similar sentiments, telling Fox News’s Sean Hannity that Kim’s missile tests didn’t worry him at all. “They haven’t done nuclear testing, they really haven’t tested missiles other than, you know, smaller ones, which is something that lots [of countries] test,” he said.
That view is fairly consistent with his past statements: As long as Kim doesn’t test a nuclear weapon or a long-range missile, Trump is happy.
Several nuclear experts on Twitter reacted with disbelief to the administration’s response:
“The Trump and Pompeo statements were too permissive of continued low-level activities that are not conducive to successful negotiations,” Scott Snyder, a Koreas expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me.
Yet some officials from Seoul I spoke with say the rhetoric coming out of Washington isn’t a problem. They note that their goal, in tandem with the US, is to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program. Anything that takes the Trump administration and others’ eyes off that prize could lead to the end of diplomatic talks and the return of “fire and fury.”
The potential problem, though, is that the Trump administration’s approach could produce more issues down the line.
“Maybe they’re picking their battles to focus on resuming much-needed negotiations for a deal,” Duyeon Kim, a North Korea expert at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, told me. “But if they continue to dismiss smaller missiles for long, they’re enabling Pyongyang to strengthen these dangerous weapons and telling South Korea and Americans living there that they don’t matter.”
North Korea gets stronger as America stands by
Trump’s theory of the moment is that North Korea is more likely to dismantle its nuclear program as long as he and Kim remain friendly. That consideration seemingly outweighs almost anything else going on between the two countries.
“Trump’s desire to keep the diplomatic channel is alive is greater than his willingness to confront the dangers that come with North Korea’s advances in weapons technology,” David Kim, a North Korea expert at the Stimson Center in Washington, told me.
The problem is that those dangers continue to mount.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the US Defense Intelligence Agency assesses that North Korea may have produced 12 nuclear weapons since Trump and Kim first shook hands in Singapore last year. That, added to the new potentially nuclear-launching submarine and further-tested missiles, means Kim has a greater arsenal at his disposal now than when his diplomacy with Trump started.
But Trump seems fine as long as Kim doesn’t test a nuclear bomb or a missile that could reach the United States. That gives Kim plenty of leeway to launch pretty much anything and everything up to Trump’s red line.
On one hand, it’s fair, and perhaps even prudent, for Trump and his administration not to overreact to Kim’s weaponry. It’s better not to blow up any chance of diplomatic progress over a few missile tests, no matter how threatening. On the other hand, though, some experts say the administration could do much more than brush off those provocations.
“They certainly don’t need to freak out,” said Duyeon Kim, “but a proportionate response doesn’t have to kill diplomacy either.”
