Give peace a chance

I have criticized President Donald Trump before and probably will again, but in the interim I believe he deserves credit for giving peace with North Korea a chance. No other American president in recent history has met with a North Korea leader in an effort to talk rather than fight.

The super hawks of both the Republican and Democrat parties had rather fight than talk because that gives ammunition to further increase an already bloated defense budget. After all, many members of Congress reportedly get the majority of their campaign contributions from defense contractors. A recent example would be when Trump mentioned peace, defense stocks took a drastic drop. Congress knows who butters its bread.

People laugh when Trump says the nuclear threat from North Korea is gone as a result of his meeting with Kim Jong Un. In my opinion there is no chance Kim would try to reach the USA with one of his alleged 16 nuclear weapons. He knows our military has over 5,000 nukes and could immediately blow him off the face of the earth.

Even Trump says Kim is highly intelligent rather than crazy.

The president was also right when he said we should not be funding the defense of nearly every democratic country in the world. That’s probably one reason we are $21 trillion in debt and unable to fund badly needed infrastructure repairs to our bridges, highways, etc. For example, we have thousands of troops in Germany even though that nation is one of the richest in Europe and maintains a modern army of its own.

Trump has some good ideas but, unfortunately, does not seem to have the ability to implement them in the proper manner. Nevertheless, give him an A for effort.

VERNON McDANIEL Ozark