Trump diverges on N. Korea, Iran
WASHINGTON » With North Korea, President Donald Trump puts on the charm. But with Iran, he cranks up the pressure with economic sanctions and a stronger military presence in the Persian Gulf. He warned its leaders Monday that they are “playing with fire.”
Nuclear weapons are at the heart of the difficult U.S. relations with both Pyongyang and Tehran. But it’s in North Korea where Trump has more leeway — and perhaps a greater chance of striking a deal.
Kim Jong Un has seemed as willing to meet with Trump as the U.S. president has been to talk and shake hands for the cameras with him. The North Korean leader jumped at the chance to meet Trump at the Demilitarized Zone between the Koreas last weekend.
Trump has made repeated overtures to Iranian leaders, too, but without the same results.
“I think Trump would be equally on a charm offensive with the Iranians if he had a dance partner,” said Mark Dubowitz, an Iran nuclear deal skeptic with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Also, Israel, which views Iran as its archenemy, is pressuring Trump to take a hardline approach to Tehran, which has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. There is no big anti-North Korea lobby in the United States pressuring the White House to shun Kim’s repressive government.
Trump inherited heavy U.S. sanctions on North Korea and then for months traded fiery rhetoric with Kim, saber rattling that caused jitters across the world. That has given way to flowery correspondence, meetings between the two and this weekend’s historic visit when Trump became the first U.S. president to step into North Korea while in office.
Not that Pyongyang has taken big steps in return. Critics point out that North Korea has not moved to “denuclearize” as Trump has demanded. But the country has refrained from conducting nuclear tests or test-firing long-range missiles.
Trump tweeted late Monday that “our teams will be meeting to work on some solutions to very long term and persistent problems. No rush, but I am sure we will ultimately get there. Not so smooth with Iran. Trump campaigned on pulling the United States out of the nuclear agreement that Tehran signed with the U.S. and other world powers in 2015. He complained that the deal, which eased economic sanctions in exchange for Iran curbing its nuclear program, didn’t address Iranian ballistic missile capabilities or its support of militant groups.
After failing to adjust what Trump condemned as a fatally flawed deal, the U.S. exited the agreement last year and re-imposed sanctions that had been eased when the deal was finalized under the Obama administration.
The pressure campaign evolved not like the TrumpKim lovefest, but to what seemed like the brink of war.
With its economy diving, Iran lashed out by shooting down a $100 million, unmanned U.S. surveillance drone and attacking shipping vessels in the Persian Gulf region. Trump said he was “cocked and loaded” to retaliate with limited missile strikes but changed his mind when he learned 150 Iranians could have been killed.
He tweeted last week, “Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”
On Monday, Iran announced it now has a stockpile of more than 660 pounds of low-enriched uranium in violation of the 2015 deal. The U.S. is partly to blame because it failed to renew waivers that allowed Iran to swap its excess to other countries.
But officials say the administration is less concerned about Monday’s breach than possible further violations that could reduce the time Iran would need to produce a nuclear weapon. The deal aimed to keep that “breakout time” at one year.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister has warned the White House that it’s naive to think Iran will wilt under pressure, or that the Iranian people will revolt and throw out its government. He said Iran will not be forced to negotiate by having a knife put to its throat.
As for North Korea, administration officials caution that Trump’s charm offensive with Kim does not foreshadow a softening of its insistence that his country must not have nuclear weapons. The New York Times reported Monday that the administration might agree to a nuclear freeze as a first step toward denuclearization.