Thursday, May 24, 2018

Surprise: Congress Reacts to Summit Cancellation on Party Lines

Weekly Standard 



 . . . “ 'North Korea has a long history of demanding concessions merely to negotiate,” he said. “While past administrations of both parties have fallen for this ruse, I commend the president for seeing through Kim Jong-un’s fraud.”
"Nebraska senator Ben Sasse said much the same: “Kim Jong-un is a murderous despot and habitual liar. The president made the right call to cancel this summit. If North Korea wants diplomacy, it should know that half-measures and spin about its nuclear program won’t cut it.”
"Democrats, unsurprisingly, were not laudatory. Senator Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations panel, said the cancellation appeared the result of a lack of understanding and preparation on the part of the administration." . . .

The North Korean Summit Should Stay Cancelled   . . . "The North Koreans have been yanking our chain over the last week or so, presumably trying to establish their leverage and begin a negotiation over the negotiation. They seemed to make some progress, with Trump saying the other day that maybe we could settle for something short of complete, verifiable denuclearization, which is supposed to be our core demand. The president may have tempted the North Koreans into the gamesmanship by occasionally seeming over-eager to take credit for a stupendous diplomatic success (stripping North Korea of its nukes) that hadn’t happened yet and is unlikely to happen." . . .

Good Riddance to the North Korea Summit  "It was a bad idea from the start, and Trump must hold firm to his decision to cancel it."
. . . "Second, in tangible ways North Korea was already using the summit to leverage concessions. It was an ominous sign when the U.S. canceled a training exercise involving B-52 bombers. South Korean officials had reportedly “expressed concerns” that the exercise could raise tensions before the summit. It’s routine for North Korea to demand the cancellation of joint military exercises with South Korea. It’s not routine for the U.S. and South Korea to acquiesce to those demands." . . .

No comments: