Tag team

By John Burton

When Moon Jae-in was elected Korean President last year, the general consensus among most pundits in Washington, D.C., was that relations between him and U.S. President Donald Trump would be tense, mirroring the troubled relationship between the administrations of the liberal Roh Moo-hyun and conservative George W. Bush in the 2000s.

But like many predictions made by Korea experts in the U.S. over the past 18 months, this has turned out to be wrong. The two leaders have become a tag team in trying to coax North Korea's Kim Jong-un to end his nuclear and missile programs.

Look on how the two have coordinated their moves over the last several weeks. First, Moon goes for three days to Pyongyang to hold his third summit with Kim. The two leaders pledge to deepen inter-Korean ties with transport projects, and reduce military tensions by moving back border posts among other measures. Moon was accompanied by leading South Korean business leaders who expressed interest in investing in North Korea.

Speaking in New York last week where he attended the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, Moon said Kim was serious about giving up his nuclear weapons and that the North Korean leader and U.S. president "trust each other."

Trump has followed up with suggestions that he would hold a second summit with Kim. He also said he is in no rush for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, noting that Pyongyang has halted its nuclear and missile testing. "I've got all the time in the world" to resolve the nuclear issue, he said.

Such statements are a far cry from the "fire and fury" that Trump threatened to unleash on North Korea last year. But much of that bellicose rhetoric can now be seen as a ploy to help force Kim to the negotiating table.

What's interesting is that Trump's approach on North Korea has been shaped by a potentially antagonistic attitude toward South Korea. As reported in Bob Woodward's new book on the Trump administration, "Fear," Seoul drew Trump's ire when he came into office because it enjoyed a large trade deficit with the U.S. while Washington was helping pay billions of dollars for its defense.

That situation apparently convinced Trump that he could solve at least one of these problems by doing a nuclear deal with Pyongyang that would reduce U.S. defense costs on the Korean peninsula. That policy also fits in well with Moon's efforts to improve relations with North Korea.

Moreover, Trump's current policy on North Korea reflects his personal preference to be at the center of the action as he negotiates deals on a personal one-to-one basis with world leaders.

But Trump's stance on North Korea is putting him at loggerheads with the U.S. national security establishment. While Trump appears to genuinely believe that Kim wants to trade his nukes for a modernizing economy, the default position among security hawks is that no easing of sanctions is possible until Pyongyang completes the denuclearization process.

They also oppose any suggestion that Trump should issue some type of peace declaration with North Korea at a early stage in the negotiation process ― something that Pyongyang is seeking as a gesture of goodwill before its proceeds with abandoning its nuclear arsenal.

The national security lobby fears that a peace declaration would led to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula, surrendering the only major American military presence on the Asian mainland, including the largest overseas U.S. military base at Camp Humphreys, at a time when Sino-American regional tensions are growing.

Trump has never shared the viewpoint of "neo-cons," such as his national security adviser, John Bolton, who was instrumental in sabotaging previous efforts to improve relations with North Korea during the Bush administration in the 2000s.

If Trump had adapted hard-line stances at times, it appears more as a means to achieve a better deal. But at heart Trump remains an isolationist.

Trump may instead try to keep the national security establishment at bay while he pursues peace with North Korea by allowing them to focus on their attention on Iran. Given his close ties to the Israeli and Saudi lobbies, this is one area where Trump is happy to follow a hawkish national security agenda.

Security hawks are now trying to link the North Korea and Iran issues by claiming there is close cooperation between the two countries on nuclear and missile development. Whether this will deter Trump when it comes to his North Korea policy remains highly unlikely, however.

Even David Maxwell, an analyst from the hawkish Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, concedes that, "The personal relationship among Kim, Moon, and Trump are driving diplomacy while the traditional national security community looks on and wrings their hands in frustration. However, perhaps their unconventional, experimental, top-down diplomacy will bear fruit."

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.