Name: South Korean president: Trump ‘beat around the bush’ on North Korea diplomacy
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South Korean president: Trump ‘beat around the bush’ on North Korea diplomacy

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Moon Jae-in helped broker two summit meetings between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks during a ceremony. | Jeon Heon-Kyun/Getty ImagesSouth Korean President Moon Jae-in criticized former President Donald Trump’s diplomacy toward North Korea and failure to achieve denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula during his time in office.“He beat around the bush and failed to pull it through,” Moon, who is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden in Washington next month, in an interview published Wednesday.Moon, elected South Korea’s leader in 2017 and now in his final year in office, helped broker two summit meetings between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — and . Trump from the second summit in Hanoi and failed to secure any long-term concessions from Pyongyang.Trump and Kim along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. At that meeting, Trump actually stepped across the concrete barrier marking the border between the two nations, making him the first president to set foot in North Korea.Even after the Hanoi meeting fell apart, Trump about the odds of a third meeting and personally complimentary of Kim, despite the dictator’s oppressive regime, dismal record on human rights and threat to global security.As recently as Monday, Trump in an interview that “I have a great relationship with a certain man that’s got great power over North Korea,” touting the “relationship that I developed” with Kim.But even former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, an ardent defender of Trump, acknowledged in an interview earlier this month that he regretted “that we didn’t make more progress” with North Korea.While Trump’s foreign policy toward the Korean Peninsula was marked by praise for Kim, it also saw the former president with South Korea and order Moon’s government for the thousands of American troops stationed there.Moon characterized Trump’s requested price tag as an “excessive amount,” telling the Times: “His demand lacked reasonable and rational calculation.”Trump’s post-presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Moon’s remarks about him.Moon also observed that while Trump preferred a “top-down” style of diplomacy in the form of one-on-one summits with Kim, Biden would likely return to the “bottom-up” method of negotiations.“I hope that Biden will go down as a historic president that has achieved substantive and irreversible progress for the complete denuclearization and peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula,” Moon said, encouraging the U.S. to pursue a “mutually trusted road map” with North Korea.Biden’s meeting with Moon next month will come after the president at the White House last week. Suga was the first foreign leader to meet Biden in person since he took office.The Biden administration has maintained the U.S. focus on North Korea as it seeks away from the Middle East toward Asia — specifically, China and Russia.

Moon Jae-in helped broker two summit meetings between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks during a ceremony. | Jeon Heon-Kyun/Getty ImagesSouth Korean President Moon Jae-in criticized former President Donald Trump’s diplomacy toward North Korea and failure to achieve denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula during his time in office.“He beat around the bush and failed to pull it through,” Moon, who is scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden in Washington next month, in an interview published Wednesday.Moon, elected South Korea’s leader in...

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Quint is a breaking news reporter for POLITICO. Quint previously worked as a digital producer and editorial intern for POLITICO, a freelancer and news intern for The Wall Street Journal, an associate producer for Louisiana Public Broadcasting, a reporting intern for The News Journal in Delaware, and a national reporting fellow for the Carnegie-Knight News21 program.

https://www.politico.com/staff/quint-forgey

Quint Forgey

Politico, known originally as The Politico, is an American political journalism company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and internationally. It distributes content through its website, television, printed newspapers, radio, and podcasts. Its coverage in Washington, D.C. includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, the media, and the presidency.

South Korean president: Trump ‘beat around the bush’ on North Korea diplomacy

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