Kim Jong Un Gives Up On Trump

Alongside the North Korean leader’s latest saber-rattling this week was a stunning admission: Efforts to engage the U.S. had failed. Kim’s plan now is to find a way to survive under crushing economic sanctions while building an even stronger nuclear deterrent to force Washington to compromise.

“We can never sell our dignity, which we have so far defended as something as valuable as our own lives, in the hope of a brilliant transformation,” Kim said, according to excerpts from an unusual seven-hour speech this week to party leaders in Pyongyang. “The DPRK-U.S. standoff, which has lasted for generations, has now been compressed into a clear standoff between self-reliance and sanctions.”

While Kim blamed the crisis on what he called American treachery, his remarks were an implicit acknowledgment that his decision to play down his nuclear program in a bid for sanctions relief didn’t work. North Korea still languishes under the same international blockade it did in 2018, when Kim announced he was prioritizing the economy over weapons development, halted missile tests and held the first of three unprecedented meetings with Trump.

“This was Kim clearly rejecting the Trump administration’s proposal offering North Korea a bright future for its economy,” said Shin Bum-chul, who studies inter-Korean relations at the Asan Institute for Policy studies and is a former researcher in South Korea’s defense ministry. “Instead, it’s seen as North Korea deciding to strive for independent economic growth, which would serve as grounds for becoming a legitimate nuclear state.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-02/kim-jong-un-gives-up-on-trump-prepares-to-endure-u-s-sanctions?srnd=politics-vp