Trump should say no to a bad nuclear deal
PRESIDENT Trump has never been tested on a deal this momentous. As the president heads to Singapore to meet North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, the potential benefits are huge and the potential costs nearly as big.
Trump must avoid fooling himself, as he sometimes does, that complex matters are simple. He must also avoid the fatal flaw of former President Barack Obama of accepting a deal at any price.
Kim is a murderous tyrant who oppresses and starves his people with an evil efficacy that shocks the conscience. His country is a massive, sovereign prison camp. By right, Kim should be deposed and punished.
But in geopolitics, tyrants often avoid their just deserts because they have something big to sell that civilized nations need.
So it is with Kim. We must negotiate with him to defang his nuclear weapons program, but this, unfortunately, cannot but confer some legitimacy on him and strengthen his hold on power.
This high cost means that only a really good deal is acceptable. Trump must aim for a North Korea that is denuclearized and disarmed of its ballistic missiles.
Reaching these objectives will be difficult and fraught with risk. But a North Korea that can hit American cities with nuclear warheads is a North Korea that must not be allowed to exist. Any deal that fails to prevent this is useless.
To resolve American and allied security concerns — we note that Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other close allies are in range of North Korean short-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles — Kim must agree to dismantle his nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Within weeks of this first summit, international weapons inspectors should have access to North Korean facilities. These inspections, with authority to make snap inspections at any time, will serve as a first step toward verifying that Kim is serious here. Being serious means only one thing: a willingness to dismantle North Korea’s ability to destroy American and allied population centers.
If Kim is willing to take these steps to build trust, he should find rewards waiting. In return for such a sweeping deal, Trump should offer his support for a multiyear South Korean-led financial aid package reaching into the tens of billions of dollars.
These investments would depend on Kim’s final and verified disarmament and would focus on infrastructure development, which allows him to boost exports and ensure his nation’s long-term economic growth.
Kim must be made aware that his failure to start an immediate and verifiable process toward nuclear and ballistic missile disarmament will mean the immediate unleashing of coercive American power. Antics, evasion or equivocation must result in new sanctions to include a shutdown of Chinese and Russian financial entities that provide the tyrant with his foreign capital lifeline. Trump should also inform Kim that any ships delivering or exporting material to or from North Korea will be inspected and if necessary detained or destroyed.
Trump is in Singapore seeking peace. We hope he understands that peace must mean more than a handshake. It means North Korea abandoning its ability to commit nuclear mass murder. If he is offered anything short of that, Trump must say “no deal.”