Donald Trump

India, which still views U.S. foreign policy with some skepticism, is essential to the success of the "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" strategy. What will New Delhi conclude from the recent U.S. diplomacy on display?

Donald J. Trump and Kim Jong Un changed the trajectory of the U.S.-North Korea relationship from confrontation toward cooperation and provided dramatic images of reconciliation with their well-hyped June 12, 2018 summit meeting in Singapore. This meeting has bought time to address North Korea’s nuclear threat and reduced the risk of near-term military conflict. But the four points of the joint statement signed by the two leaders underscored the magnitude and difficulty of the work remaining to be done. The document signed by the two leaders for the first time envisioned a normal relationship between the United States and North Korea and reiterated Kim Jong Un’s commitment first made to South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the April 27, 2018 inter-Korean Panmunjom declaration to “complete denuclearization,” and pledged to renew joint work toward prisoners of war/missing-in-action (POW/MIA) recovery of remains from the Korean War. It also authorized a process of follow-on negotiations to be led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a North Korean counterpart. By normalizing Kim Jong Un as an actor on the world stage, by pledging efforts to establish “new U.S.-DPRK relations,” and by pledging to curtail U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises, Trump has moved dramatically in the direction of meeting longstanding North Korean demands to end the “hostile relationship” between Washington and Pyongyang and offering security guarantees as a requirement for denuclearization. But Kim Jong Un does not appear to have reciprocated U.S. concessions. This is concerning given North Korea’s track record of pocketing concessions rather than delivering quid pro quos. North Korea reiterated an aspiration to achieve “complete denuclearization” and pledged to destroy a missile engine test site, but the timeline and scope of such a process are not clear. In this respect, the United States appears to have given more than expected, while there are no concrete North Korean actions envisioned that might validate Kim Jong Un’s seriousness of purpose to denuclearize. Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un is being normalized on the international stage despite North Korea’s status as an illegal nuclear weapons state. The joint statement did not directly address North Korea’s missile development, chemical and biological weapons programs, or human rights situation, underscoring the limited time and progress made during technical negotiations. Likewise, U.S. and UN sanctions will stay in place pending tangible progress toward complete denuclearization, although no additional U.S. sanctions will be added. But the symbolism of the meeting ensures that the maximum pressure campaign has peaked and that, in practice, China and South Korea will push for relaxation of economic pressure on North Korea. Nor did the U.S.-North Korea joint statement provide any sense of linkage to the processes between peace and denuclearization or to inter-Korean commitments outlined in the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom declaration. All these issues must go onto the agenda of the Pompeo-led process to come, but the likelihood of rapid progress is not high given the apparent vagueness of the commitments contained in the joint statement between the two leaders. Despite the drama and historic nature of the meeting, the outcome did not live up to the hype. As a result, Trump faces a huge challenge in selling a turn in U.S.-North Korea relations as an historic accomplishment. The best way to do that will be for Pompeo and his team to roll up their sleeves and get back to work, together with our allies, to make a real peace on the Korean peninsula.

The agreement between President Trump and Kim Jong Un may be the start of denuclearization, or another failed effort brought down by North Korean cheating. But if the United States and North Korea are to have a new relationship, it must include the human rights dimension. There’s no reason to rehearse here in detail the astonishing nature of the regime’s tyranny. The size and vicious nature of its prison camp system, the punishment of family members for what the regime appears to believe is a blood taint, the number of deaths, the murder of Otto Warmbier—all are well known. It is the most brutal regime on Earth.  The first point to make is that raising human rights issues will not destroy the effort to change North Korea’s nuclear conduct. President George W. Bush raised freedom of religion repeatedly with Chinese leaders and that did not prevent a working relationship. President Reagan put human rights issues at the center of his relations with the Soviets, and that did not prevent remarkable progress in the relationship. As George Shultz wrote in his memoir Turmoil and Triumph,  Ronald Reagan and I both gave pride of place to human rights. He took up the subject at each of his meetings with Gorbachev and with most visitors from the Soviet Union to the Oval Office.  I pounded on the subject at every opportunity....” Indeed he did, making it the first subject at meetings rather than a throwaway in the final minutes. Yet relations with the Soviets prospered. The second point to make is that the only possible guarantee that a nuclear deal with North Korea will last over the years is some change in that society. As long as there is brutal one-man rule, the only thing needed to destroy any progress that has been made is a whim by that man. If and when there are others with influence—some day, one can dream, a journalist or legislator or mayor or clergyman—there can be something called “public opinion.” It exists even in dictatorships. Shultz described Reagan’s approach to the Soviets this way: “I’m not playing games. I’m not trying to push you into a corner publicly. I understand politicians even in your circumstances have to worry about how they look and don’t want to be pushed around in public.” So pressing for change in North Korea is not utopian and foolish idealism. Shultz noted that he and Reagan “increasingly emphasi[zed] to the Soviets the advantages to them, in the emerging knowledge and information age, of changing the way they dealt with their own people.” That is the kind of argument worth making, and to some extent the Trump administration has been making it to North Korea.  The third point is that how we act toward North Korea must reflect who we are as Americans, even if the impact over there is slight. That regime killed an American named Otto Warmbier, and not in the distant and murky past: next week is the first anniversary of his death. The Trump administration must recognize that among our nation’s greatest assets is our association with the cause of liberty. Working for the peaceful expansion of the frontiers of liberty is not a sucker’s game, or a disadvantage or liability, or a waste of resources. It is in very concrete ways one of the greatest advantages of the United States in world politics. It is ultimately what ties allies like Australia, South Korea, and Japan to us: the knowledge that what we seek for them is what we seek for ourselves—peace, security, and liberty.   The alternative is to leave those allies, and others, with the sense that our relations with North Korea exclude them and their interests, which we have forgotten. That is what happened in the Obama administration's nuclear agreement with Iran: close allies situated near Iran, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel, came to believe their own interests were simply being forgotten. We saw in 2009 that the Obama administration viewed protests in Iran askance, not as the people's call for freedom but as an inconvenience to negotiations with the regime. Japan and other allies in Asia have critical security interests at stake in our relations with North Korea, and we should always give maintaining close and longstanding alliances pride of place as we undertake to open new relationships with hostile powers.  This is not to say that the President should return to Washington and suddenly blast human rights abuses in North Korea. That should be a steady, constant theme in American diplomacy, never abandoned and never diminished. When we did the nuclear deal with Libya in 2003, we did not take Qadhafi’s weapons and then turn around and commence a human rights onslaught meant to weaken or to bring down his regime. I believe we bit our tongues and actually said less than we should, but one can understand why: we were starting a relationship with Libya that we thought would lead in the medium run to a political opening there as the economy and society changed and pariah status was replaced by international engagement. But the goals and the American standards of conduct must be clear and our disgust at the Kim regime’s treatment of its people should always be equally clear. As in the Soviet case, that will not destroy our bilateral relationship; instead it will push the regime toward change and in any event will remind the regime who we are and what we believe. To put it another way, a nuclear agreement with North Korea is not a single transaction--or if it is, it will fail. It must be the start of an effort to change relations between our two countries, and to change the relationship between the regime in North Korea and both the international system and its own people. In that effort, a constant assertion of our belief in human rights is essential to success and to our own self-respect.     

The outcome of the G7 summit suggests Trump is prepared to abandon the transatlantic relationship, and even the concept of “the West,” as pillars of U.S. global engagement.

With less than one week to go before the first-ever encounter between an American president and a North Korean leader, there is all manner of speculation about whether the historic Trump-Kim summit can deliver even more meaningful firsts: Voluntary abandonment of nuclear knowhow by a relatively weak and vulnerable state, despite decades of efforts cultivating such a capability, and the melting of "the last glacier" of the cold war — that is, the frozen Korean conflict. The opening positions of both the United States and North Korea are long-standing, well-known, and seemingly non-convergent. The US must hold to its demand for comprehensive denuclearization of North Korea to uphold the validity of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), deny North Korea the ability to use the nuclear threat to intimidate South Korean and Japanese allies, and eliminate risks of nuclear proliferation to other bad actors. North Korea seeks a deterrent against more powerful adversaries to guarantee its regime survival and to establish mutual nuclear vulnerability with the United States — unless the United States abandons its "hostile policy" toward North Korea and engages in mutual nuclear arms reductions — as well as to improve its strategic position and standing as a normal and "responsible nuclear state." But because the realization of a US-North Korea meeting has been so unexpected, unprecedented, and personalized, it will provide a unique opportunity for both sides to test their assumptions about the intentions and motivations of the other. Answers to the following questions can help to assess the likelihood of success or failure of the Trump-Kim summit: 1. Can North Korea accept and reciprocate Trump's gesture of reconciliation? North Korea has a reputation for pocketing rather than reciprocating unilateral concessions. By giving Kim the respect that comes with interaction on an "equal footing," Trump has front-loaded symbolic expressions of his intent to improve relations, end the Korean war, and reduce military tensions on the peninsula — presumably in return for North Korea to indicate their intent to denuclearize. Will Kim Jong Un reciprocate, and if so, how? 2. Will Kim Jong Un finally choose between nukes and economic development? As part of his consolidation of power, Kim Jong Un established a policy of simultaneous pursuit of nuclear and economic development. Subsequently, North Korea announced a series of domestic special economic zones, while also ramping up missile testing to over twenty tests per year in 2016 and 2017. As of April of 2018, the country's party line has been amended to focus primarily on economic development on the rationale that North Korea has achieved its nuclear goals. But without additional North Korean cooperation and involvement in implementing a denuclearization process, it's too soon to say that the country has abandoned nuclear efforts. 3. Will Trump end up tacitly accepting a nuclear North Korea? A delicate aspect of the Trump-Kim summit is that the United States is meeting with a de facto nuclear state that desires détente without denuclearization, while the US wants détente in exchange for denuclearization. There is a risk that leaning too heavily into an attempt to end the Korean war and replace it with a permanent peace might change the relationship without addressing the underlying risk that accompanies a nuclear North Korea. Without defining, in detail, a mutual "action for action" process, the United States could change the window dressing around the threat — without getting at the root of the threat itself. 4. Will Trump offer or accept a reduced US commitment to the defense of South Korea? Bringing the Korean War to an end could call into question the purpose and level of American forces needed on the Korean peninsula to meet its security commitments to South Korea. Trump has already indicated that he expects allies not to be free-riders when it comes to footing security bills. As reiterated by Defense Secretary Mattis at the Shangri-la Dialogue, this is ultimately an alliance issue the United States and the Republic of Korea should manage separately from negotiations with North Korea. At the same time, though, reduced tensions will justify tangible force withdrawals if the inter-Korean border is truly to become demilitarized. As part of this process, it would be reasonable to negotiate with Seoul — not Pyongyang. 5. What role should China play in facilitating peace and denuclearization? Since Kim Jong Un's New Year's speech, which marked North Korea's turn toward diplomacy, China has more often than not stood on the outside, looking in. Xi Jinping is a partner of Trump's in sanctions implementation, but China's role in peacebuilding has not yet been clearly defined, and it is making Beijing nervous. The Korean conflict is multi-sided, with peninsular, global (nuclear), and regional dimensions, and all sides must move in tandem if a real resolution is to be achieved. 6. What will happen if the summit fails? Some analysts suggest that, rather than lead to a US-North Korea confrontation, a failed summit will result in renewed diplomatic efforts by South Korea — and possibly others — to restore stability and maintain North Korean restraint, so as to avoid the prospect of renewed escalation of military conflict. Less than two days after Trump initially cancelled his plans to meet with Kim Jong Un, the second inter-Korean summit was held on May 26, which shows the two Korean leaders are able act together, and limit the prospects of the US considering preventive military action. In the event of a Trump-Kim summit failure, the result may be to enhance North Korean dependency on Seoul and Beijing as safety valves against the prospect of renewal of US-North Korea confrontation. This circumstance in and of itself provides a new buffer against the prospect of military escalation in Korea that was not present at the end of 2017. This post originally appeared on Business Insider.

In an op-ed recently published in the Hill, I write about how Trump’s abdication of American leadership has rendered the G7’s formal summit agenda irrelevant. The gathering of the G7 members in Quebec this weekend reveals how much damage President Donald Trump has done to the formerly united West. It is not unusual for G7 leaders to deviate from the formal summit agenda, or for global crises to render prepared talking points irrelevant. What is unheard of is for the United States, which has steered the G7 for decades, to play the skunk at the garden party. But that is precisely the role Trump has chosen, to the consternation of alienated U.S. allies. The president’s unilateral security decisions, protectionist policies, and climate denial have done the seemingly impossible task of pitting the United States against the rest of the West. Read the full op-ed here.

The president has been clear about his protectionist views. Why didn’t anyone listen?

President Trump has abandoned previous U.S. administrations' respect for the rules-based order.

With ongoing euro uncertainty in Italy, financial turmoil in Argentina and Turkey, and potential fiscal risks to demand in Asia, does the Trump administration's focus on trade deals miss the larger macroeconomic picture? 

Trump has turned on longtime allies, labeling them a national security threat in order to levy 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminum. For neighboring Mexico, this will affect some $3 billion in exports. While not insignificant, it is just a speck of the $300 billion-plus the nation sends north each year (for Canada, steel and aluminum comprise $11.5 billion of more than $300 billion in U.S.-bound trade). Yet the size of the tariffs belies their true import. They officially bury the already dying NAFTA renegotiation. They threaten the integrated industries that send basic inputs back and forth across the border, hurting manufacturers, workers, and consumers alike. And more broadly, notwithstanding the president’s repeated claims, they demonstrate that trade wars aren’t easy to win. Take Mexico, which responded to the tariffs with its own counter-salvo. While many observers anticipated a fight with the EU, fewer expected it from Mexico. The nation is utterly reliant on the United States. As one of the world's most commercially open countries, Mexico has turned trade into its main economic motor. And of the $400 billion Mexico exports each year, eight out of ten cents head north. Among Trump’s ever-growing number of combative trade fronts, Mexico might therefore stand out as the most likely to fold. But Mexico is prepared for this fight. As Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo declared after the tariffs were announced, "we always said that we were going to be ready to react." It immediately announced punitive measures. Certain types of steel made the list; so did lamps, cheese, pork, apples, grapes, and cranberries. This menagerie wasn’t haphazard. Instead, it was designed to gain both economic justice and political leverage, targeting key congressional districts and Trump supporters. Mexico has been down this road before, during a decade-long battle over cross-border trucking. NAFTA promised, alongside goods and services, to open up transportation markets: After a phase-in period, Mexican and American truckers were supposed to be able to take their loads straight from the factories to their final customers on the other side of the border. Yet the U.S. government continued to block Mexico’s rigs on safety fears and more than a little pressure from the Teamsters. After years of cajoling, after the creation and then cancellation of pilot programs, Mexico in 2009 finally invoked retaliatory tariffs to the tune of $2.4 billion a year. Nearly 100 products, ranging from Oregon Christmas trees, Wisconsin paper and Washington pears to New York jewelry, Florida orange juice and Idaho potatoes, were hit with levies of five to twenty-five percent. As the tariffs rose, so too did the constituent phone calls to influential representatives and senators of both parties. Two years later, the Obama administration developed a new pilot program to allow vetted trucking companies and their drivers to cross the border, and the tariffs ended. As a trade tit-for-tat begins anew, the Mexican government is deploying the same strategy. This time it isn’t alone. Several U.S. manufacturers along now well-developed supply chains are supporting their neighbor. Canada and the EU are joined in the fight, and their initial lists look notably similar to Mexico’s initial trucking foray, penalizing cosmetics, manicure and pedicure products, felt tip pens, toilet paper, and hair products among dozens of others items produced in targeted congressional districts of influential House members. At home, these steps are proving popular. Despite being in the middle of a heated and ugly election season, all the candidates support the Mexican Commerce Department’s moves. President Enrique Pena Nieto looks to gain at least his citizen’s sympathy, if not their political approval, from his stance. The nation’s business community also has the government’s back. Granted, Mexico was careful to not put tariffs on the types of steel used in the auto industry, and domestic dairy producers may even benefit. But overall a mix of patriotism and justified indignation has overridden anxieties among Mexico’s manufacturers. This stands in stark contrast to the United States. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce condemned Trump's tariff move, and agricultural interests announced the tariffs will “take American farm operations to the breaking point.” No one knows yet where this skirmish will lead. Despite its initial bravado, Mexico will suffer, particularly if the U.S. ups the ante with further tariffs or threats to NAFTA. The nation is also facing a political transition that could have its own severe economic repercussions. But the initial round already shows that there are no easy trade war wins, and that the U.S. government would be wise not to underestimate the weapons of the seemingly weak. View article originally published on Bloomberg. View article in Spanish on El Financiero.

Following the rollercoaster ride that has accompanied scheduling of an on-again, off-again summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, where do we actually stand in terms of defining a convergence of interest on the process, pace, and price of denuclearization that might be expected to accompany the meeting, if and when it actually happens? A delegation led by American Ambassador Sung Kim has reportedly entered North Korea for negotiations in Panmunjom, while a delegation led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin is meeting with North Korean counterparts in Singapore to discuss protocol for the summit. North Korean Vice Chairman Kim Yong Chol arrives in New York for the highest level visit by a North Korean official since Vice Marshal Jo Myong Rok visited Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in 2000. Here are the main issues they must resolve before Trump and Kim will be ready to meet. Read more in The Hill.