After the Trump-Kim failure

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Md Sharif Hasan
Published : 16:18, Mar 06, 2019 | Updated : 16:19, Mar 06, 2019

Md Sharif HasanMuch was expected from the Hanoi summit. There may have been goodwill on both sides, but in the end neither the United States nor North Korea could agree on the path forward. The two sides failed to reach a common understanding of what their desired endgame for denuclearization actually is.
Many analysts were hopeful that there would be some kind of a deal. After all, as Kim Jong-Un said he would not have travelled that far if he was not sincere about denuclearization. And, no one had really believed that there would be an amazing breakthrough. Nobody really expected to see a statement about complete denuclearization spelt out with concrete steps to sustain the process. But, at the very least, some smaller deal would have been possible with Mr. Kim giving up at least their Yongbyon nuclear facilities and the US reciprocating with the reducing of some sanctions , even if not all of them. What was really surprising was even a less comprehensive deal wasn’t possible in Hanoi after all the expectation and fanfare.
The US did have some objectives going into this Summit. The big question in the room was how much were they about to give up in return for North Korean denuclearization. And, that’s probably where expectations didn’t quite match up between North Korea and the United States.
As many would agree, Kim Jong-Un was in Hanoi to seek the boundaries for what a denuclearization agreement could look like. North Korea has nuclear weapons in a very simple way to protect itself. There’re myriads of reasons for it to go nuclear, but the key reason is to protect itself against perceived aggression from the US and its allies in the region. So, nuclear weaponS play an important role in Pyongyang’s foreign policy, but so do the sanctions. The sanctions that have been slapped on Pyongyang imposed sharp limitations on the revenue that North Korea can get from exporting its coal, seafood or textiles. They’re no longer North Korean laborers working abroad in significant numbers. And, Kim promised securities for his people on both the revenues and forex earnings in addition promising economic prosperity as well. Perhaps, it has become clear that you can’t have economic prosperity if you’re a country facing some of the most comprehensive sanctions packages and a near total embargo of your economy. If you’re facing that, achieving economic prosperity is very difficult. So, they’re interested in a deal but Kim is not going to give up the nuclear weapons for nothing. He needs some assurances from the US and that’s going to take involve some major changes in the way that the US operates in the region. It’s interesting to see how this will proceed.

Denuclearization is something that Washington pursues relentlessly and from the American point of view, President Trump is right to push for this and engage with Pyongyang.

We can assume that in about a year from now, he will be in his re-election campaign. And, in a way time has run out for the North Koreans. If they want to agree to some kind of deal, it probably has to be done before the Donald Trump goes to into re-election mode because we don’t know if a Democratic President would take the same approach to North Korea. Part of the reason why we have a sitting US President willing to meet the North Korean leader, is a personality dive of Donald Trump that shouldn’t be understated. Then again, we have also a lot of instability because of tweeting and things like that. So, in a way the future is uncertain and really the ball is in North Korea’s court. We haven’t had heard from them yet. We don’t know why the talks broke down or didn’t go as planned from their perspective. We need to wait and see what comes out from North Korea’s state media. That may explain their willingness to continue with this process which is hugely important?

Md Sharif Hasan teaches International Relations at the University of Rajshahi.

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***The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions and views of Bangla Tribune.
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