World on a knife’s edge
UNDERPINNING it is a feeling of helplessness that the fate of millions rests in the hands of two men, one out of his depth and the other out of his mind; and a false sense of security that if this goes up, damage will be contained to the Korean Peninsula.
The last time the world got so close to nuclear catastrophe was when John F Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev faced off during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. There were real differences to what is happening today: namely, it was two superpowers taking each other to the brink; and the threat to US mainland cities was real.
Some argue, therefore, that 1962 was more serious than what is playing out between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un, who lacks the ability to hit the US mainland. This argument is viable only if nothing erupts on the Korean Peninsula.
Commentators repeatedly remind us that Kim is not “mad” but a dangerous man striving to achieve legitimacy and recognition by threatening Armageddon. Placed against pictures of him exulting in warheads, promising nuclear “gift packages”, and imperilling the lives of so many, including his own citizens, this view is becoming hard to take.
Kim is mad. With no enemies apart from those of his own imagining, he has conducted six needless nuclear tests with another expected any time. He has fired one missile over Japan. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley’s claim that he is “begging for war” seems right.
It is not of Trump’s doing that he is on watch as Kim realises his long-held ambition of being able to build and launch nuclear warheads. But it has become Trump’s greatest test. If ever there was a time to show his abilities to close a deal, it is now.
Instead, Trump is using Twitter to advance ill-considered sledges, calling South Korea weak and messaging this week that the US is considering “stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea”.
He’s talking about China, America’s largest trading partner. By some estimates such a trade halt would instantly cost a million US jobs, see America’s shelves empty, cause interest rates to spike and spark a deep recession.
Further, Trump would need to turn to Central American and South-East Asian nations to ramp production to fill the China void — something that goes against his every instinct.
A trade war with China won’t happen. But the fact Trump has threatened one shows how everything firing off from his hair-trigger Tweet finger has gone beyond meaning or analysis. All that matters from here on are his actions.