Of brags and broken morals

Trump and Kim both got what they wanted from the propaganda and photo-op bonanza at the historic summit in Singapore.

ALL North Korean leader Kim Jong-un really needed from his unprecedented summit with United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday was to keep his nuclear arsenal intact for the time being and get a decent handshake photo to show he has truly arrived on the world stage.

To probably even his own surprise, he got that and a whole lot more.

While offering no solid promises to abandon his hard-won nuclear arsenal any time soon, Kim got to stand as an equal with the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, received indications that the future of joint US-South Korea military manoeuvres may be in doubt and was showered with effusive praise from a president who just last year derided him as “little rocket man.” If he was forced to negotiate by US pressure, it certainly wasn’t obvious.

All of this from a 34-year-old leader who was widely written off as too young and too inexperienced to last very long when he assumed power after his enigmatic father, Kim Jong-il, died in late 2011.

From the start of their meeting, Trump showered Kim with praise, calling him a “talented man” who “loves his country very much.” But more importantly, Trump suggested he would like to end annual military exercises with South Korea – a major, longstanding North Korean demand – and gave Kim lots of wiggle room on the future of his nuclear weapons, replacing calls for an immediate or even a speedy denuclearisation process with a virtual shrug that “it does take a long time.”

The success of the summit wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Right up until Kim’s arrival, North Korea, which may have wanted the meeting even more than Trump, had been palpably nervous. But North Korea’s confidence began to show almost as soon as Kim arrived in Singapore on Sunday.

Though its state-run media had cautiously reported relatively little on the summit in the months-long run-up, it opened the flood gates after he touched down in a chartered Air China jet, evidence that he had the full backing of his country’s powerful neighbour and economic lifeline. Photos of the arrival covered the pages of the ruling party’s newspaper and dominated television news. Kim’s night tour of Singapore on the eve of the summit got an even brighter spotlight, as he was shown being received like a rock star by crowds of onlookers.

On denuclearisation, the key issue of the summit, Kim appears to have held astonishingly firm. Or perhaps he just wasn’t pushed very hard. Though the leaders mentioned in a joint statement the need for the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, the wording is ominously vague and, it could be argued, doesn’t go any further than the North’s previous promises. Whether Trump’s claim that Kim is devoted to the process remains to be seen. And, it’s safe to assume, that is just fine with Kim.

He got other gifts from Trump as well. Along with establishing himself as an equal and reinventing his persona abroad as a “normal” leader of a “normal” nation – he even took a selfie with Singapore’s foreign minister that was posted on Twitter, which like all other social media is banned in the North – Kim’s primary objective at the summit was to undermine support for international trade sanctions that have long hindered his plans to develop North Korea’s economy.

His success on that front seemed almost immediate. Malaysia, which had cut ties after the assassination of Kim’s half-brother at Kuala Lumpur’s airport a year ago, is now talking of starting them up again.

And China, the key to any serious sanctions effort? It’s also reportedly considering easing its trade restrictions.

Beaming in the moments after his summit with Kim Jong-un, President Donald Trump was asked about North Korea’s history of human rights horrors. “It’s rough,” he allowed. Then he added, “It’s rough in a lot of places, by the way. Not just there.”

Trump’s verbal shrug in Singapore represented a striking change from the way US presidents have viewed their job, a shift from the nation’s asserted stance as the globe’s moral leader in favour of an approach based more on trade-offs with adversaries and allies alike.

Trump made clear that his main interest was taking a first step toward denuclearising the Korean peninsula. There was no lecturing of Kim over how to treat his own people in a nation that is estimated to have between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners and remains one of the world’s most closed and oppressive societies.

Though Trump is far from the first US president to work with an unsavoury counterpart to achieve a strategic goal, his decision to broadcast that he tacitly accepts Kim’s history of atrocities was a sharp break from the position of past presidents to set the US as the exemplar shining city on a hill for other nations to emulate.

Trump did champion the plight of US citizens who had been imprisoned in Pyongyang. But human rights was a small part of his talks with Kim. And it was not mentioned at all in their joint statement.

“I think he liked me and I like him. And I understand the past and, you know, nobody has to tell me, he’s a rough guy,” Trump said of Kim. “...We got along very well. He’s smart, loves his people, he loves his country...

“Anyone can make war, but only the most courageous can make peace!”

Instead of using the summit spotlight to demand that Kim protect basic liberties, Trump offered a moral equivocation that evoked the kid-gloves approach he has also taken in meetings with other authoritarians for whom he has expressed admiration. Like Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, and Xi Jinping of China. And King Salman of Saudi Arabia.

The template was established a year ago in Riyadh on Trump’s first international trip.

“We are not here to lecture,” he said then. “We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership, based on shared interests and values.”

Trump’s relative silence on the issue in Singapore drew some sharp rebukes.

Said former Vice President Joe Biden, “Talking to dictators is one thing; embracing them is another.”

But Trump defended his cold-eyed pragmatism as part of the hand he was dealt with Kim while on a quest for a greater good.

“I’m given what I’m given, OK?” Trump said. “I mean, this is what we have, and this is where we are.” — AP