Finally giving trump some credit!
Remind me again, how many North Korean summits did Obama attend?
1
This upcoming summit is not about nuclear weapons or human rights. This summit is all the about the strutting, pontificating and preening Peacock called Donald J. Trump, a very questionable President of the United States.
Trump could care less about weapons or humane treatment of people. He cares only for himself and his very over inflated ego. He wants to enrich himself, period.
This very lacking individual, is a mirror image of the character in the "Left Behind" books, Nicolae Carpathia, the Potentate and Antichrist.
Donald Trump is the personification of greed, graft, and dishonesty. He is an evil man through and through.
4
As I settle down to read the Times this evening, the thing that strikes me the most is the multiple fronts on which our president is waging war on his country, his party, his allies; on issues of nuclear weapons (of which he understands nothing, having appointed no scientists to inform him), human rights, health care. I honestly can't think of one area of life, in the US or around the world, that is not threatened directly by this man.
What on earth makes anyone think that Trump is even aware of North Korea's human rights violations, or that he would care if he did know? He seems to care only about himself and, possibly, as extensions of himself, his money and his sexy daughter/wife, Ivanka.
He is so disgusting at such a deep level that it really is difficult to believe.
My guess is that if confronted with the term "human rights violations," and asked to say what they are, the president of the most powerful nation in the world wouldn't be able to do it.
3
Convince President Trump that he can receive the Nobel Peace Prize only if he can get Kim Jong-un to release many political prisoners in the North Korean labor camps, and it will happen. Otherwise he just will not care.
1
Kristof's interview with the North Korean official in regards to the American student who they sent home in a fatal coma really tells the whole story to me of North Korea's constant and horrific crimes against humanity. When has making a deal with the devil ever worked?
5
I see how America must have a denuclearized North Korea. We have been threatened by (we think) intercontinental missiles tipped by thermonuclear weapons lately. At the same time Kim knows what happens to dictators who abandon nukes and wind up dead in the street--Gadhafi. Those are irreconcilable differences at the top of the list for negotiations between Kim and Trump-Putin that promise divorce before the summit begins tomorrow. Then given a god-like national leader we also know ala WW2 Japan what it means to defeat, let alone negotiate, with such evil nationalism. So I hold no hope for anything but a photo opportunity for Trump and world-wide status for Kim after only a few days or weeks of negotiations to denuclearize North Korea and security America from attack. It's pessimistic but realistic given Kim's family traditions in the larger world and Trump-Putin's amateurish foreign relations. Let's look for a 3-ring circus and much 'sound and fury' but no progress on the issues, leaving aside the human rights concerns. It's ironic to have Trump-Putin, as I've started referring to our president, expect North Korean deal making when he has abandoned the Iran agreement in the same genre.
Dear Mr. Kristoff,
even the worst journalists in the West can muster enough courage to criticize the violation of the human rights in North Korea.
How many of them here in the US dare to criticize the violation of the human rights in Israel?
Isn’t it extremely strange that the state that was established as a country of the refugees is shooting the current refugees trying to cross into Israel?
How are we going to justify such behavior to the future generations, let’s say in 22nd century?
Are they going to be stunned with our morality as we are now with the slave owners from the 19th century?
This summit has nothing to do with nuclear weapons or with human rights. Putin is pulling the string on two puppets here, and the point is to make DT look good enough to boost the GOP in the midterms. It's basically more election meddling, so that the US government continues to work for Russia. That's what this is about.
1
Most likely North Korea never was able to develop an ICBM and those they fired were borrowed from China for show.
Now Kim will trade the ICBM´s they never had for some serious concessions from the US, probably the removal of US nuclear
warheads from South Korea and tons of American Green Backs.
Trump probably knows it, but presses ahead nonchalantly so he can claim victory having "disarmed" North Korea. Congress and the Fox will make sure his gullible base will buy that.
If this visit blows up in Trump's face, he'll blame Justin Trudeau not giving him a military parade for draining his mojo.
3
While millions of Americans hope that the N Korea atrocities and threats could be corrected, I am somewhat disturbed by Mr. Kristof's seeming optimism that Trump, with his erratic and unprepared diplomatic knowledge will somehow be able to surmount the problem. If we had real world leadership, we could actually use planning, diplomacy and economic power to bring about change. But rather than use all the tools that America has long had, Trump is throwing them out the window while relying completely on HIS "smarts" and "intuition". We all can see how well that worked in the G7 meeting where he insulted and alienated our few remaining allies. I am not a religious person, but God help America!
11
Right now, the most hyperindulged psychopath on Earth thinks he'll persuade Kim to turn North Korea into a Trump-branded resort.
4
Nick,
Human Rights?
Where is this country's moral authority in the age of Sessions and Trump, to challenge others on human rights as we grieve the actions of this administration on our southern border? Let's focus our attention on the children incarcerated in this country because they were with their parents. What insanity.
We've got a lot of cleaning up at home before we go finger pointing. North Korea and others are terrible when it comes to human rights but we are without significant guilt.
LEHeider
10
Trump is in power by virtue of a relic of US slavery. I doubt the guy would prefer it any other way.
3
I fear that this summit is simply show, and is just an excuse for waging war. Trump goes to the summit, makes his pitch for complete and unilateral disarmament, is refused - of course - and then returns claiming he did all he could do, and he is "forced" into war. The Bolton Solution.
11
To be honest, much as I admire and respect Nicholas Kristof, this comes across as delusional.
Trump long ago metaphorically sold his soul to the devil, as described in Paradise lost:
Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven
Evil, be thou my good
I don't want to rain on the parade, but of these two monsters, one inheriting an unimaginable state of repression, and one desiring to achieve that state, there's little to choose. If anything, I think KJU is more likely to show glimmers of potential; he was well liked by his schoolmates in Switzerland and was known to have a sense of humor. Trump has nothing but bile and doesn't exist in three dimensions, except to be a bullying coward.
Trump is clearly less intelligent, has poorer advice, and is less open to reality. And that's saying something!
13
As Trump seeks a distraction, North Korea works well as he makes enemies with Europe and Canada.
He is a dangerous fool, and his followers are dangerous as well.
4
DT has no plan, has done no preparation for his talks with Jong Un, and has o ability to communicate in a diplomatic fashion. He can't even play well with U.S. allies! Therefore any notion that he'll achieve anything positive is quite surreal. Everyone knows these two are the most irrational, ego-driven so-called leaders in the entire world, and yet some people expect a rational outcome. If the actual possible outcomes weren't so frightening the whole notion of expecting a rational outcome would be downright hilarious.
8
Sorry, Mr. Kristof. There is no denying the fact that North Korea is the most totalitarian State under a ruthless dictator, Kim Jong-un. But I don't think Trump is that harbinger of truth, decency and raising the issue of humanitarian laws violations especially when we support Oligarchs, Despots, tyrants who do so arrogantly and nonchalantly. The US under Trump has lost every right to preach superciliously. Is'nt Trump behaving as the Despot in a democracy? He has destroyed our election, obstructed justice, pardoned felons and violated humanitarian issues like snatching infants from parents' arms. He is just destruction incarnate, lying his way through. Kim is far from an angel but let's not get up on the moral pedestal. We have been knocked down from that pedestal for a long time now. And Trump is not better than Kim. Our Democracy should have been the guiding light. Instead we have a real despot President making a real mockery of it.
10
First, I hope this article will get its facts straight. I think Mr. Kistof should at least do some research or interview someone who recently lived there. With friends who deflected from the north, going to prison camp because of south korean drama is just outrageous. And north koreans are not starving to death these days. In the 90's many children died of famine but that was more than 20 years ago. There are many "markets" in north korea these days that are illegal but ironically encouraged by the government. Economic development is a major goal for the regime, as portrayed in Kim Jung un's new year speach. And in those markets, anyone could easily buy dvd or usb full of american or korean entertainment, samsung and lg electronics, and other goods that had been brought in through china.
I believe that north korea has serious human rights issues. And those matters should be discussed. But I am frustrated when the media portraits the north as monsters without proof. I think the person from UN probably never been to the prison camps in north korea. There is plenty of propaganda about the Kim family heritage but the north people do not believe in everything and many do not take it seriously.
Many human rights experts think that economic development is not the key to democracy. McDonald's will only sell hamburgers in the north and silence itself on human rights. But opening boarders could be a start to realizing freedom of press and speach.
3
Please refer to the following sentence in this column by Mr. Kristof:
“In my opinion, conditions in North Korean labor camps are as severe and brutal as the Nazi camps were,” said Thomas Buergenthal, who served on an International Bar Association panel investigating North Korean prisons and is himself a survivor of Auschwitz.
2
What strikes me as necessary is first to insure peace, then to work towards liberalizing the North Korean government, but there must be peace to proceed on human rights.
1
N.Korea is a client state of China. What you are describing is extreme Maoism. The brutality toward the N. Korean people must be occurring with their aid and approval. Tormenting the U.S. and their neighbors with the possibility of war, including now nuclear, must also be the policy of Communist China.
If the ICBMs came from Russia, they are in on it. This is as much as about the seriousness of the major powers to prevent nuclear proliferation as it is about anything else.
There are 300 million non-Han Chinese in China, who have also been ruled with an iron hand.
4
Since Mr. Kristof obviously isn't so naive to believe that Trump--or most Americans, for that matter--cares one bit about North Korea's gulags or its other egregious human rights abuses, he must be bringing up the issue because of a pang of guilt over not really mentioning it in his last column about the nuclear talks. He knows that Trump is the last president who would raise issues such as the N. Korean regime's heinous prison camps.
But in any case, Mr. Kristof's tone is far too measured, too reasonable, too good natured. He should be expressing outrage that Trump treats murderous dictators like Kim, Putin and Duterte with more respect than he does the leaders of our closest democratic allies, that he dares to even suggest that he'd host a monster like Kim in our house, the White House, for a follow-up meeting, etc.
Mr. Kristof well knows this summit is only meant to be a reality show distraction from the Mueller investigation and that Trump is wholly unqualified to represent the U.S., yet, he holds out hope for a breakthrough in the talks.
Let's face it, these talks will not succeed and the U.S. will lose much of the scant moral standing it has left in the process.
6
Here are my predictions for the summit:
1. Empty words, symbolic gestures heralded by trump as a "New Day".
2. Kim, Putin, and Xi win.
3. America loses.
4. Trump supporters confuse 3 & 4.
Trump will start to yammer about something like "A New Era of Peace", and that he is responsible for ending the Korean War. Kim/Putin/Xi will let him enjoy the charade. Trump will continue to press for preparation for removing US Military from South Korea. America's geopolitical strength continues to spiral into disaster.
7
Oh so now liberals care about the humanitarian record of North Korea? Before this summit all I heard was "Dont poke the Hornets nest" and what basically amounted to "anything besides the status quo will lead to war." The only hope was doing the same thing we have done since the mid-1990s. I never heard a single thing about how Kim Jung Un treats his people. I remember this because I wrote a ton of comments mentioning that the articles were completely ignoring NKs humanitarian record.
Also I hope this article shows how comparing Trump to Kim Jung Un is a false equivalence. I know that's an argument that only liberals are supposed to use against conservative arguments, but comparing a guy whose never murdered anyone in his life to someone that personally signed the death warrant for his uncle to be exploded by and anti-aircraft cannon is a false equivalence. He may be a horrible president but comparing Trump to Kim shows a blatant disrespect for the office of the presidency itself. I feel at times that some liberals are secretly hoping Kim Jung Un comes out with the upper hand somehow.
5
How did we ever get ourselves into this situation?
4
Because one has to run faster in order to stay in the same place and we stalled.
North Korea?
"Trump In Canada" was as bad as it gets!
We learned one important fact: President Trump is in over his head.
Insulted Canada and Europe. Made threats. Left early after a news conference to badmouth US allies.
This after having disrupted women's empowerment session, arriving late and wearing a snarl.
Repeatedly calling for Russia to be allowed in the group. Then this morning his aides further blasted Canada on television with much deception.
Hours before all of that, Trump had been tweeting about the “great meetings and relationships with the six country leaders.”
....I doubt such a fickle player will fare well in North Korea.
Canada's Trudeau stood with authority. Trump slumped, sat alone stared into space, and walked around looking bored and miserable.
We won't see what happens in N. Korea. But Trump's display in Canada was fully depressing.
8
America's human rights violations are just as awful as North Korea. Millions of Americans are living in abject poverty without Healthcare. Overdoses, gun violence and Suicide kill about 100,000 a year. Police routinely shoot innocent civilians to death. The list goes on and on. American is not in any position to criticize other Nations over Human Rights.
5
Trump could care less about human rights unless he can make a huge profit off them.
7
I agree it makes pragmatic sense not to make "human rights" a hostage to "denuclearization" talks with N Korea. But since Trump does not believe in human rights here in America, he most certainly wouldn't make it a priority at this summit.
So no worry, dear Nicholas, about possibly de-railing "progress" with N Korea. Our divider-in-chief will look for the easiest way to achieve glory for himself. Or at least an opportunity for casting blame on Mr. Kim and thus receiving adulation from his base for "being tough".
4
Nary a word on human rights is my prediction. What will we hear? "Got to know Kim really well." "Amazing leader" "Made a great deal" What I keep thinking is that, in many ways and especially at the just concluded G7, Trump is playing his cards exactly as Putin would advise him. I have no doubt then that NK will leave Singapore with the upper hand, with nukes still in play, and Trump bragging how he brought them to their knees. I wonder what it is that the Russians have on him that makes him so reluctant to do what is right for the US and its allies and not to keep doing what is best for Russia
4
Kim Jung Un might trade a tepid pledge to get rid of his nuclear weapons to gain the right to point thousands of artillery pieces at Seoul and the ability to intimidate its southern kin. Kim Jung Un has murdered and enslaved his people to the point that whispering what you think is a death sentence. But Trump seems to care nothing about this. His only intent seems to be about removing headline getting articles and getting a Nobel Prize to one up Obama.
Beyond this Trump trashed the Iran deal, but would make one even less restrictive on NK's abuse of its neighbors, people and IT spy games than that we put on Iran. The change we want in North Korea must be the liberation of its people and society, nothing less.
2
You may find that three generations of evolution under a continuous military emergency has had the same sort of effects on the population as raising three generations of Americans to believe the US is a divine creation.
2
I’m pretty sure Trump won’t be looking for the NYT opinion section for what to do which in this case is a good thing.
Let’s let the summit happen with a focus on its first objective - having a face to face meeting to then build upon - before we start our hypocritical moralizing.
Maybe Trump can ask what the North Koreans think about the recent wedding cake issue.
2
There is only one way we should be viewing and dealing with Donald Trump and that is united resistance until he is driven from office, one way or another. He is a racist, an enemy of democracy and all that is decent in this country. Columns like this which normalize him, hold out hope that he will do something decent and right are not only naive but dangerous, because the continue this silly repeatedly disproved narrative that he can "pivot". (Remember that word? We don't hear it anymore). Korea will be as much of a disaster as anything else he has touched. I actually hope he fails there because the sooner we are rid of him, the better our chances for saving what is left of our democracy.
3
Trump doesn’t care about human rights. He said it in his first overseas trip to Saudi Arabia. To think that he might do something for the abused, starved and brutalized people of North Korea is ludicrous.
3
Did I hear you correctly? Are you saying Trump cares about Human right? Really?
2
So far, the only thing our potty-mouthed so-called president HASN'T shown us is, well, him sitting on the potty - but it hasn't even been two years yet, so, "We'll See."
What a crude excuse for a human being. 'Way, 'way outside the bounds of presidential.
3
I commented earlier in Krugman's piece about the G7 today because I saw no where else to mention it, raising the question of whether or not a reporter would ask Kim at Singapore about his brutal executions of people with packs of dogs or military cannon. About the use of Nerve Agent to assassinate his brother?
I get your POV Mr Kristof but I do not agree. Nothing would change if we had not engaged and kept to the status quo. Kim would have destroyed the DPRK within 12 to 24 months if El Trumpo had kept his mouth shut and we handled them via the UN. The elite troops who escaped in the DMZ, easily the most privileged people in the nation were riddled with parasites many of them which can only be got by consuming food fertilized with human waste!
All of this was caused by the Kim Family's brutality and intrinsicly evil nature. They are no different than Hitler, Stalin, or Mao. In fact they may in fact have murdered more people since 1954. As laudible as you make it sound I do not agree. They are no threat to the US and they know if they used a nuclear warhead on any neighbor they are a threat to they would be exterminated within 48 hours.
There is no valid reason not to insist first and foremost that they stop all human rights abuses and allow UN and red Cross inspectors in without restriction of any kind.
IDK if El Trumpo is a traitor or being played. Either way it is long term bad for everyone except China & Russia that the Kim regime will continue to stand.
3
How can Donald Trump lecture anyone-even the Korean despot- about human rights? He is a racist who has no understanding of or respect for democracy, due process, the rule of law. Trump actually likely admires much about North Korea because of his authoritarian outlook. And because Trump is truly an idiot, and an egotistical maniac, he will not have the knowledge or discipline to do any of what you urge. I find it astonishing that you still have expectations that he will ever do anything in a rational, normal way.
1
Wow. This article, along with all the comments that reflexively bash Trump, is a frightening insight into the liberal mindset.
Trump would be a COMPLETE FOOL to bring up human rights violations, because no dictator wants to be lectured about how they run their internal affairs. It would immediately start the discussion on a bad footing and get us nowhere, for absolutely no reason. Dictators don't want to hear about human rights, LGBT rights, or anything else that fascinates the American left, who feel like everyone on Earth must share their values. If he were willing to listen to such a lecture, he wouldn't be tossing people in prison camps in the first place! Good *GOD* you have to be daft to be a liberal.
What Trump should do -- and likely will do -- is try to "get along" with Kim and pretend they have a friendly relationship just like Kim has with Dennis Rodman. The Left will of course fall all over themselves criticizing him for acting like buddies with a murderous dictator, even if he actually gets rid of the nukes by doing so!
This is why liberals don't get anywhere dealing with our enemies, along with generally mismanaging everything else.
5
Except this is exactly what Trump et al complained about the Iran Nuclear Deal. They criticized the fact that it did not include human rights, state sponsored terrorism, the relationship with Israel and the rest of the region, and every other critique that could be levied against them. Why do they get to have it both ways?
9
Trump negotiating on behalf of human rights? Haha. That is quite a hopeful stretch, Mr. Kristof! I wouldn't hold out much hope for anything noble like that.
Trump is going there for his personal popularity ratings -- nothing more. This is to justify his military medal, and to promote the notion of a Nobel peace prize. And sadly, Fox, and his base will be loudly vocal in support. And in these bizzare times, I could imagine him being awarded a Nobel.
Here's hoping for the best, but after 500+ days living with Trump as the POTUS, I'm pretty sure this is all about Trump TV ratings and what this meeting can do for him, the Donald.
16
And how well did Obama do with stopping Kim's nuclear weapons program?
For all of the left's attacks on Trump, unemployment is way down, our economy is up, he is fighting for fair or no tariffs, he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, he got US hostages back from N. Korea and from Venezuela, etc. etc. That sounds like winning to me!
1
@JonathanEGrant,,,while I congratulate your loyalty and optimism, the "winning" here was in motion way before Trump. Let's see how you feel next year when your tax cut benefits start diminishing, and your healthcare (if you can get any) costs skyrocket. As to employment being way down...many are working in jobs below their pay grade, and many have dropped out of the work force completely. The Economy? A high stock market is not on most Americans' dinner tables, and the last time it shot up, the bottom dropped out and Bush left a Recession for Obama to clean up. As to N. Korea and Venezuela? Relations haven't improved, and in the meantime, Trump has alienated our UN, NATO and G7 allies....and still no negative words for Putin.
As a follower of Mr Kristoff’s inspiring and enlightening opinion pieces, I interpret his meaning here as well intentioned and in character for him. He is not one to condemn the person, presumably in hopes of that person being capable of a change of heart. He believes in redemption in short.
Who are we to question someone following that hopeful way of relating?
So I do not question or condemn this way of thinking, it is probably a better way to live. And I am sure Mr. Kristoff knows the likelihood of meaningful change coming from the interactions of Trump and Kim.
Both have surrounded themselves with toadys or malevolent schemers who will not be inclined to encourage reform in the interest of human progress.
I have lived long enough to know that better outcomes for people only come after widespread public demand and citizen action, which includes holding leaders accountable and replacing them in fair elections.
The poor people in North Korea cannot do this. We in the United States can, for now, unless we allow our rights as citizens to become so eroded by this current repressive regime that we find ourselves with fewer and then none.
It’s alarming that we see more and more of Trump’s acceptance and admiration of and by the despots of the world.
8
Nuclear weapons. Period. There's only one issue worth trying to make progress on. Other "nice to haves" will follow in their own time if NK can return to the community of nations.
7
And so that is why he bailed out of the Iran deal?
2
Just one more article in the Times suggesting why the US should not have a deal with NK, where it is about Human Rights this time so we can blandly agree. There seems to be a neoliberal frenzy at the Times. Please let Kim Jong Un get rid of all his nuke delivery systems (with inspections). Let the US troops get out of South Korea, and let both countries destroy nuclear bombs tit for tat (of course, the US would still have a whole bunch left, while NK would be denuclearized). And let's reduce the threat of war, and let the North Korean people stop starving.
4
Kim's army will be as much at loose ends under that scenario as Saddam Hussein's.
You may be right, Mr. Kristof, but at the same time, I do not think we can trust Mr. Trump to negotiate in good faith. He proudly bragged that he did not need to do much to prepare for this meeting, so he probably knows relatively little about the matters you mentioned and likely cares even less.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kim has a need to negotiate with the United States. Reportedly, he can no longer test nuclear weapons, so he claims that no tests are necessary. North Korea's economy is in apparently dire straits.
I fear this will be a meeting of two unreliable "leaders" trying to outsmart each other and accomplishing very little.
If somehow they do manage to accomplish anything long-lasting, I will be the first to congratulate Mr. Trump.
1
And I will be the first to congratulate Mr. Kim if they do manage to accomplish anything long-lasting, because if it's trump's Tuesday then everything will be changed by
trump's Friday.
1
Oh, are there human rights?
3
Since when does Washington care about Human rights - even the most basic right, the right to live.
Washington supported the Shah and his murderous Savak, 2,000 killed; Pinochet, 10,000 murdered; Suharto, 500,000; Israel has killed over 20,000 Palestinians and the US recently vetoed a UN attempt to bring Israel to justice.
2
The propaganda announcements into people's homes are very similar to Trumps campaign rallies where only his sycophants attend.
1
Kristof strikes a hopeful note for human rights in North Korea. It is sad and pathetic. Neither Trump nor Kim have the slightest interest in human rights. Before Trump could even give lip service to the issue, he would have to know that it is an issue. Anyone want to bet?
The man who pardoned Sheriff Arpario clearly does not care about human rights.
14
Will Kim Jong Un bring up American human rights violations?
With 2.3 million Americans in prison, America has 25% of the world's prisoners with 5 % of humans. And while blacks are only 13% of Americans,40 % of prisoners are black like Ben Carson. Because blacks are persecuted for acting like they are white.
America's invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have killed, wounded, displaced and made refugees of millions.
America supports ethnic sectarian cleansing in Gaza, Iraq , Iran Yemen, Libya, West Bank and Syria by it's "allies" Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
America invented and has used nuclear weapons. America has 48% of nuclear weapons.
Puerto Rico is an American colony aka possession territory.
8
The US has the world's highest per capita rate of incarceration, not North Korea.
We have due process. That is the ultimate human right.
How can justice be done for a presumably sane human, Nicholas, who says we must defer to north korea’s Ability to nuke us
And
We must impose our human rights on said country? because Nicholas is morally superior.
Twit. Sanctimonious by profession, twit.
Kristof continues to make good sense on NK.
1
Are you serious? Trump is fully in favor of torture. He has said this publicly many times. Sheesh.
3
The surly Donald Trump made it his mission to sabotage the summit and alienate our allies.
A sulking, petulant child, frowning + isolating.
He needed a time out chair. And Prime Minister Trudeau gave it to him.
Arriving late, refusing meetings, leaving early:
Trump, the alpha male bulldozer, made a fool of himself.
9
North Korea should keep its nukes but stop threatening the US about them. Stay quiet, build your deterrent and remember Hussein and Qaddafi who obeyed us and gave up the nuke programs. Saddam got hanged with our permission and Qaddafi got murdered in broad daylight and we did nothing to stop it.
3
Doubtful the chump Don elDough Trump will even mention the oppressed North Korean populace. Trump is going there because our Department of Offense cannot stop more than 11 out of 20 launches, at the most, and Trump wants to push the idea that he, chump Trump, our fascist Hitlerite fake president deserves the Nobel Prize for whirled Pizza and reelection.
1
Trump wants a deal, any deal, so badly that I strongly doubt he'll rasie any of this. I agree with this column, and any other presdident would raise any and all of these issues, but that involves preping and learning, neither of which Trump does. So we may be stuck whith a horrible deal that will let North Korea get away clean, with its nukes and everything else, and with us deservingly called suckers.
2
If Kim can make five holes in one in golf, he a trump should get along just fine with facts being unnecessary for their ego.
6
Elton John, Rocket Man
She packed my bags last night for Singapore
Zero hour nine AM
And I'm gonna be high in Air Force One by then
I miss my golf so much I miss my life
It's lonely in the air
and my porn star affair,
And i think it's gonna be a long long time
'Till Kim Jong gives me what I think is mine,
I am the God they think I am at home
Oh no no no here comes the rocket man
Rocket man launching off his missiles when we're done...
4
Dictators around the world, praised carte blanche by despot Trump as being more efficient than democracies, applaud him, as he doesn't give a damn about human rights. That's why I believe that Trump and Kim Jong-un will get along 'well'. Just look at Trump's stupidity in abusing verbally the G-7 Group of Allies, and praising Russia's 'right to belong' in spite of it's despicable behavior. Trump is a disgrace for these United States...and a clear and present danger to the world. And to add injury to the insults, he refuses to even acknowledge what any high schooler knows to be a fact, climate change aggravated by Trump's permissive attitude (deregulation) allowing polluters a free hand. Trump is an unrepentant liar and exaggerator, who lost all credibility. America's allies are desperate for a more amicable relationship, particularly in trade, but it seems a lost cause now due to the irrational intransigence of the brutus ignoramus in the Oval Office.
3
If you think out Thug-in- Chief is going to have a thought about human rights , I think you are sadly mistaken. He is in these talks to “win” and show the works he is a bigger strongman than his North Korean counterpart.
6
The Untied Nations has accurately accused the U.S. of human rights violations, at our southern border. Then, there's the torture, and the arms sales, and the bombing of Syrian and Yemeni civilians, the incarceration of non-violent drug addicts, the murders of innocent, unarmed Americans in the streets, the poisonings of our waters and land, the threats to our free press and our 1st amendment rights, etc. etc.etc. tRump is flabby, ignorant joke, who shames us all.
3
I of course don't know exactly what Kim's objectives are in this meeting, but they are probably complex and limited. If Kim succeeds in totally talking the U.S. out of the Korean peninsula, then he has no leverage over China of any kind. So he probably is not going for that. We know that Trump's only objective is some kind of photo "win". Certainly neither could care a whit about human rights. We don't know yet what the limits of Trump's evil are. There might be limits. For example, unlike Kim, I suspect he wouldn't murder his relatives. That is admittedly a low bar, but he is probably not as bad as Kim, or if he is, at least we don't yet have that evidence. If both have very limited objectives, they might make a deal that is cosmetic for Trump (which is all the substance he cares about) and has some concrete elements for Kim that help him. Certainly South Korea and Japan are the parties that stand to get screwed, not to mention the actual interests of the United States.
2
We are the victims of our own success.
Since we won both the WWI and WWII, we started believing that the other countries can only be changed by military victories and that nothing could be achieved peacefully or voluntarily.
It could be easily proven that two largest problems of the humanity are directly connected to the White House policies.
North Korea hasn’t changed because they felt to be under the siege since the peace treaty has never been signed.
The radical theological fundamentalism in the Middle East was again the choice of our government.
After the WWII the Arab countries started to modernize and even embraced the socialist worldviews in Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Syria, but our government deployed the radical Wahhabism ideology in the fight for the Arab Streets and the Arabs.
Unfortunately, we have won a battle but lost the war.
Now we are saddled with the allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two most theologically conservative and dictatorial regimes in the region…
The rise of the Taliban and the Al Qaeda happened after we militarily defeated the alternative – the socialist ideology in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, the current hotbeds of the ISIS…
The tragedy is that we are blaming the Islam for our mistakes. Hadn’t that religion provided the worldviews that were open and warm toward the socialism without any foreign influence or the troops in the fifties of the last century?
1
Wow. I'm almost afraid it will work the other way - Kim will give Trump ideas! Let's not arrest just the person suspected of a crime, let's arrest the entire family! Let's make sure we have Trump TV piped into every home 24 hours a day and the only other shows would be FOX! And all programs tell us about how wonderful Trump is and nobody can turn it off or turn it down.
Really. Kind of worries me. Trump certainly desires to be America's first dictator. I think Kim is pretty darn smart. Maybe Kim will give Trump lessons in how to be a god. That's even better than a dictator!
Trump's going to get played. There's no doubt in my mind.
4
We are not in essence doing anything with North Korea in these talks. China controls North Korea, and it will adamantly maintain its integrity as a strategic geographical buffer between China and the United States in South Korea. China sees Trump simply as a stupid, greedy, and arrogant fool to be manipulated and controlled. China plays the long game in seeking to maintain dominance in Asia and the Pacific as a prelude to world domination over the next century.
Trump destroyed a robust Iran deal in petulant vengeance directed at Obama. During the campaign, Trump was befuddled by a question about the nuclear triad; he didn't know what it is. He would use nuclear weapons if he could, simply because he thinks we should use what we have. Now he engages in a hastily and poorly planned meeting predicated on his "gut" feelings. "I think I'm very well-prepared. I don't think I have to prepare very much. It's about attitude," he boasts.
Trump has led a life of moral and ethical bankruptcy. He scams and skims off anyone to make a quick buck for himself. He has proven himself completely untrustworthy except in matters that personally benefit Trump. He is exactly the kind of person you would never want as president. If Trump fell off the face of the earth right now, who of value would miss him?
China and North Korea understand the words of Douglas MacArthur and are poised to act on them: "There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity."
3
Nicholas Kristof, don't be silly. Trump isn't interested in human rights for refugees coming to our country, or even American citizens, some of whom are non-hispanic whites. Caring about the human rights of foreigners he regards as sub-human, including the Japanese citizens North Korea kidnapped and enslaved? Not Trump, and not anybody in a leadership position in his party!
4
If Kim Jong-un participated in an election for his nation's highest office, his campaign would have looked exactly like Trump's.
He would take every opportunity to demonize his enemies. He would take every opportunity for self-aggrandizement. He would take every opportunity to tell his people that "only he" could solve their problems.
There is absolutely no philosophical difference between Kim and Trump. The only difference is that Trump wishes he had the power Kim had to silence his enemies. And perhaps if he is in office long enough, he will. The notion that Trump would travel to meet Kim with the objective to promote human rights is frankly laughable. Mr. Kristof is smarter than this. I'm at a loss as to why he would even write such a column. Frankly, it would be much more within the realm of possibility that I, as a 5' tall woman, would write about what I planned to do after going in the first round of the NBA draft...
We all know what is going on here. Apparently the New York Times believes it must function like everything is "business as usual". But the times are anything but "usual." We are living in the first chapter of an American dictatorship, and we will be lucky to extricate ourselves, much less be in a position to lecture to any other nation.
But this doesn't mean that the Times or other publications ought to act as if our government were operating as a sane, functioning democracy. It most certainly is not, and we're nowhere near finding our way back yet.
4
has anyone thought about the possibility of Kim sending a body double to Singapore for some nefarious purpose? that sounds like something North Korea would do.
3
Imploring Trump to bring up human rights with North Korea is like appointing the Fox to guard the Hannityhenhouse.
Instead he's going to come back with ideas like putting Fox News on obligatory American loudspeakers (Amazon Echoes?) in every home.
1
Richard: evangelicals live to impose their world view on everyone.
1
Then progressives are evangelicals, by that definition.
1
If we had a president who was concerned about human rights in the U.S., we might have a chance to negotiate with North Korea in this regard. As it stands, Kim knows Trump doesn't care about human rights anymore than he does. This summit is a waste of time and money.
You can't seriously expect that the man who ordered young children to be separated from their parents at our borders and held in closed Wal-Marts and military bases in cages is going to be concerned about North Koreans being held in prison camps. He's more likely to ask for tips on how to set up and run such camps here. When has Donald Trump ever cared about anyone but himself?
And Japan and South Korea are not stupid enough to believe that he will even mention their concerns. He is there to get a deal, no matter how much he has to give up, so that he can claim his Nobel Peace Prize. I'm guessing he'll throw our Asian allies under the bus of his ambition to get a deal. Why would he not? Japanese and South Koreans don't vote in American elections, and he might get something to brag about in return. For us, this will be an interesting meeting. For others, it could prove to be quite costly.
5
Why do we keep thinking and speaking in terms of rational thought and considerations? Both men are self serving ego maniacs. They're not here for you, me, our children or for that matter their respective countries. They're meeting to satisfy themselves. If you want to think and consider these two men and their actions, think and write about the harm they've already done and will continue to do. Hope may spring eternal but not with these two adolescents. You're wasting ink.
3
"On my visits to North Korea beginning in 1989, I’ve been flabbergasted that each home had The Loudspeaker on a wall (in the villages I visited, The Loudspeaker was mounted on poles and shared by several homes). The Loudspeakers issued constant propaganda along the lines of:
On his first golf outing, the supreme leader shot five holes in one, not long after scoring a perfect 300 his first time bowling!"
Kim and trump should get along famously!
Two serial narcissists - trump has twiiter -kim has loudspeakers.
1
America must stop lecturing the world about human rights. When it separates refugee children from their parents, refuses to protect school children from mass shootings, and actively tries to take health insurance from the poor and minorities, America violates basic human rights every day. Every day.
3
The reality of the situation (no pun intended) is a showman is getting on the stage he loves and will not make a bit of difference in North Korea's stance on nukes or human rights.
The show must go on.
In the meantime we have to worry if P.T.Trump believes that "one is born every minute" and he alone can do away with the threat of nuclear war.
I keep thinking of Einstein's statement " I do not know what weapons will be used in WWIII but WWIV it will be clubs and stones. "
1
Again, Mr Kristof, let's be honest with ourselves, if Trump could pull it off, he would install speakers in every American household blaring the same ludicrous messages you cite in this article---of course the foods chosen to celebrate Trump's wise rule would be a bucket of KFC..
1
I think Trump really does believe he can con Kim into transforming North Korea into a Trump-branded resort. The man's narcissism is unlimited.
2
Nuclear weapons?
Human rights?
Freedom?
The so-called president didn't go to make things better, he went to generate headlines for himself. Elections a'coming and the Commander-in-Chief Bone-Spur is out to rally the base with tough talk!
6
All due respect, Nicholas, you are naive if you think Donald Trump cares a whit about human rights anywhere in the world. All he cares about is a photo opp that portrays him as the winner. Everything else is a prop for his narrative. Every single person, every single person who has tried to treat him like a normal human being susceptible to diplomacy, kindness, gratuitous praise, or any kind of flattery, finds themselves trampled under Trump's foot. Look at the long perp walk of people who marched into Trump Tower thinking they were going to influence his thinking about anything. Look at the G7 trying mightily to keep him from destroying Western economies.
He doesn't listen to anyone but the demon inside his own head. All the musings about "Trump could," or "Trump should," are an utter waste of time. We need him gone from our government, the sooner the better. The world depends on his downfall, as quickly as possible. (No, I don't want this president to succeed, because if he does, we all lose.)
9
The 60 seconds-
Trump: We have the biggest weapons!
Almost half my people love me!
-
Kim: We have the biggest human oppression system;
ALL my people love me, or they disappear!
-
Trump: I sized him up - I LIKE this guy!
8
I have no idea what you are talking about. President Trump is just in love with Kim and his policies. I doubt human rights even gets mentioned.
3
Tom Burgenthal -- disclosure, a friend from long ago -- has a nose for human rights violators. His judgement that the North's prison conditions are as bad as the Nazi's is likely to be correct.
But I've been to Nagasaki, about a decade after the bomb. For me the risks of incinerating parts of the Republic of Korea and Japan is too vast to permit human rights to overtake denuclearization as a priority. Though something to worry about, the likelihood of Kim hitting the U.S. is far less.
At any rate, President Trump, must imitate President Obama who set Iran's meddling in Syria and elsewhere aside to get a good nuclear deal (JCPOA). Like it or not, that deal is the template for a genuine deal with Pyongyang that would in time get us to a denuclearized Korean peninsula.
The two greatest dangers: Trump gives away the store or gives Kim, an equally vain leader, an ultimatum. Either way, Trump would make more likely a new Korean conflict.
the US has about the same number of people in prisons as does N Korea. The Us is the only country that has dropped atomic bombs on civilian cities...yet we say we are entitled to have nuclear weapons while others are not
This summit is nothing more than a photo op, one designed to give Trump what looks like a "win" while giving Kim the real win of being treated as an equal to the president of the most powerful nation on earth. It will not improve human rights in the North Korean gulag nor will it "denuclearize" the Korean Peninsula. But Trump, our Liar-in-Chief, will brag that he has accomplished what no other president could, and nearly half our populace will believe him.
3
What is in our best national security interest?
How can we demand that any other nation is deprived of the same rights we have?
If the nuclear weapons make us safe, don’t they make the others safer too?
It’s equivalent to depriving the others of the voting rights because they are allegedly more stupid than us and can’t make the best decision?! If we are not willing to have such a stupid domestic policy, why would we have it as the international strategy?
Those wrong ideas have cost us several trillion dollars.
We have fought the socialist countries over the last three decades. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya are not just the Muslim countries. All of them used to be the socialist ones.
We didn’t fight against the radical fundamentalists or the dictators as the worst of them were in the Saudia Arabia and Egypt. We have fought against the socialist governments at the tremendous cost to America.
The problem is that North Korea is another socialist country.
Do we get an allergic reaction and blur our wisdom when dealing with them?
Remember, the communism is just a specific case of the capitalism. Why should the capitalism fight itself? The capital exists in the socialist countries too. It’s just equally divided among all the citizens, so all of them are entitled to collecting the profits.
The communist system is just a specific case in which everybody is a capitalist…
He should -- but he won't.
1
Trump is the President of a country that has tortured. He called for more torture when he campaigned. His new CIA director participated in torture.
The definition of hypocrisy is what?
North Korea has done some very deplorable things, but the United States isn't exactly lily white either.
1
How is Trump going to justify condemning torture when his own country has resorted to torture, and his Director of the CIA is a condoner and participant in torturing people? This demand by Trump is going to be nothing less than sanctimonious hypocrisy. Don't do as I do, do as I say. Please, this is nothing ludicrous hogwash.
2
I think Kim and Xi want to give Trump and the Repubs a boost in 2018, that that is part (just part, but an important part) of what this dog-and-pony show is about. Just as Trump and the Repubs find dictators to be more sympatico than democratic allies, so Kim and Xi would rather deal with fascists, who they can understand and make corrupt personal deals with, than Democrats, who care about American interests, our allies, and democracy and at least pay lip service, sometimes much more than that, to human rights.
While North Korea is in a category all of its own on the violation of human rights, Trump is busy violating the rights of children to be with their parents at the border, among all the other dog whistles president Jim Crow is shrieking about.
Trump will not raise human rights with Kim, because he is utterly unconcerned with them and in no position to complain if he was. After all, on the US-Mexico border, having declared all those crossing it criminals, even asylum seekers, Trump is callously separating children from their parents. 11,000 children are in detention. 1500 have simply been 'lost'. It is hard to imagine Trump wasting any words on the plight of North Koreans in that country's gulags when he is so busy filling his own.
3
North Korea will never give up their nuclear weapons. Grandfather, father and son were and are brutal dictators. They have and will stay in power until they die. Human rights? In North Korea? Has anyone ever heard Kim Jong Un utter the words human rights? For that matter has anyone ever heard President Trump utter the words human rights?
7
This Kristof column would make sense only if he were a Korean.
Why?
The only way to improve this world is by eliminating our own mistakes. Talking about the sins of the other people is a recipe for repeating the same mistakes till the end of times.
The truly smart, honest and faithful people would only ask a few questions.
How many millions refugees have the mistakes of the North Korean Government created?
How many millions refugees have the mistakes of our very government created?
Trump would love to put all of us into a labor camp.
6
Ok lets talk Human Rights; DJT vs KJU
" triplets are regarded as auspicious in North Korea and so are given to the state to raise."
Trump deemed it with in the law to rip a child out of the arms of migrant parents to be raised by Social Services.
"When North Korea was suffering from famine in the 1990s, the state broadcaster national slogan “Let’s Eat Just Two Meals a Day!”
Trump seeks to cut the food stamp program by $17 billion in 2019 and $213 billion over the next ten years. Cutting the safety net of tens of millions of low income families, I hear, "let them eat cake"
"One good sign: Although North Korea in the past had been criticized for mistreating people with disabilities,"
Trump proposed cuts of $72 billion over the next 10 years by largely targeting Social Security Disability Insurance. I hear, these human beings are but a burden to society. They are red ink on his balance sheet.
"North Koreans have told me how the police periodically turn off all the power in an apartment building, thus locking any video or DVD inside the machine playing it."
Trump's mantra from the beginning he enter this arena .."fake News." Nothing short of pro Trump utterances and/or actions is fake and there are many who buy this jargon.
Human Rights discussion? In your dreams. I hear from both of these two little human beings,' The whole is greater than it's parts.'
8
I agree that Trump is not the correct person to be tasked with encouraging another country to adhere to Human Rights. Trump chooses thugs as his friends and favors leaders of countries who have no regard for human rights.
2
Mr. Kristof, you begin your column by citing an impossibility: "Trump should make clear to Kim that what makes a nation “modern” is not just McDonald’s franchises, but also an end to torture and a measure of freedom."
How can you really expect Donald Trump to lecture Kim Jong-un on anything? Donald Trump isn't concerned with modernity. He isn't interested in freedom, least of all those in the thrall of a totalitarian state. Donald Trump is concerned with one thing only: winning.
No faithful reader of yours over the years doubts the anguish that finds its way into your reports, stories and op-eds about human rights abuses throughout the world. I think people of good will, especially Americans, wish desperately that people who are penned up in labor camps or are in prison on charges that are absolutely laughable, were set free immediately.
Donald Trump is an ignorant man. He may have been told by his advisors about the cruelty that the Kim family have visited upon their citizens for decades. But why should these faceless sufferers matter to him? He is on the way to Singapore to try to negotiate, without "preparation," a nuclear non-proliferation agreement in which North Korea relinquishes its ambitions for a wider arsenal and a place at the Pacific Rim table with China to be "in the discussion" as we say here at home. Do you think that Donald Trump would hazard a failure in Singapore because he becomes a "bleeding heart" for the oppressed and jailed under Kim?
I think not.
2
This entire article is naive in the extreme. Does anybody think for a minute that Trump cares one whit about personal liberties of North Koreans, or for that matter American citizens?
2
Human rights don't exist in North Korea. The Kim family has been literally worshipped in the D.P.R.K. since 1948. Kim Jong-un's hermit kingdom of 70 years is failing. His meeting with Trump in Singapore tomorrow and maybe Tuesday, too, doesn't mean diddly beyond the frenzy of social media now -- unless untoward events occur during this bizarre Trump-driven North Korea/American Summit. Kudos to the 38 year old North Korean leader for flying in a Chinese jet to Singapore to meet our 72 year old president. We'll see what happens, as DJT says and tweets over and over. We are living in interesting though fraught times.
There isn't anyone alive in North Korea today who has even experienced peacetime as we know it.
3
We cannot be right if over the last 65 years we’ve miserably failed to strike a peace deal with North Korea.
Remember, we did not fight the North Koreans in that war because they would not have been able to resist the combined military might of the USA and the South Koreans.
We had been fighting China during the Korean War. It makes no sense that since Nixon detente with Beijing we have failed to sign the peace treaty with Pyongyang.
If over the last few decades we have voluntarily exported our industrial base to China, it doesn’t make any sense that we still have the US troops stationed along the 38th parallel to deter the potential Chinese invasion on South Korea.
Our prolonged development of the US troops along the Korean border is based upon our notion that Seoul would not be able to defend self without us.
Have we ever wondered how come that the Chinese don’t have their military deployed along that border to defeat a potential South Korean aggression on the North?
The only thing to fear is the fear itself.
Have we failed to sight the peace treaty for being fearful?
There is no other logical explanation because the South Korea should be military superior to their northern brothers.
Those are the same people. Just imagine if the American civil war ended up in the stalemate and the Great Britain has kept their troops along the armistice line to prevent the atrocities.
Such ridiculous strategy would only hurt America and the Great Britain.
Expecting a man who has expressed great admiration for some of the most ruthless people in the world, such as Duterte and Putin, and countless other authoritarian leader who have no qualms violating human rights, to push Kim Jong-un towards more humane treatment of his people is a pipe dream.
While it's certainly something other presidents would strive for, it's completely unrealistic for Mr. Kristof to even think this something that Trump has or will ever have considered.
1
I frankly do not understand Nick's surprisingly tentative approach to North Korea's miserable human rights record. He makes the suffering of North Koreans seem almost an impediment to nuclear arms talks.
The fact is, Trump has shown no real care or interest in how tyrannical leaders like Kim, Duterte, and Putin treat their people. Have no fear, Nick. Human rights is not on the table in a Trump negotiation.
However, putting human rights front and center should be a sine qua non of any discussions between the United States and North Korea.
Sorry. Evil ignored is evil abetted.
2
Right or wrong, Americans aren't concerned about the human conditions of the North Korean people. We only care about the threat of their nuclear weapons and missiles.
Hopefully, if the nuclear issue is dealt with and NK opens up a little later on due to trade even with the US, the people will benefit. But let's walk before we can run and take care of the security issue. We dreamy Americans often get caught up with platitudes when we should be just dealing with "realpolitic".
Unfortunately, I share the views of the North Korean spokesman in this video about Trump. How can we request that other people listen to us when we are represented by someone who daily destroys the very aspects of civilized living that we demand of others? How can we even allow him to fly across the world and pretend to speak as if he understands what it means to live in a globalized world in the 21st century? If Trump were the CEO of some great company, the Board of Directors, I believe, would fire him or contrive to keep him home and away from Twitter. At one time, I believed our Senators and Representatives had such responsibility, but our Board of Directors in D.C. seems to want this great company of ours to die. In ignominy.
Thank you Nicholas for sharing your experiences. I recently read two books which both horrified and fascinated me: "The Orphan Master's Son" and "A Kim Il-Sung Production." This is Nazi Germany once again with all its unimaginable control over every aspect of its people and their daily lives. An Orwellian nightmare in our midst.
This article seems to suppose that Trump merits his title of POTUS. He does not and will not behave as such. This meeting is all about Trump : his personal challenge is 'Trump versus Kim', to 'win' where other administrations have failed. Can we expect the bully-boy, the equivalent of a wife-basher (example, his treatment of his European, and Canadian friends) to have an iota of compassion for North Koreans?
The "focus" was, is now, and forever will be, on Trump, how only Trump could solve any issue with his "genius, bullying and GOP Base inspiring megalomania. Trump will undoubtedly pull a denuclearization bunny out of a magic hat in Singapore. That tale will be confirmed every day until the election on Fox News, where it will be called an "historic" diplomatic achievement that was beyond the ability of "weak" Obama. As to human rights, the Republicans don't care about human rights in America, they certainly don't care about them in North Korea.
Trump is not going to North Korea to engage in talks about human rights. Neither man has any interest in human rights.
You state, “But I also believe that Trump can and should explain to Kim that his regime will never be fully respected unless it improves on human rights and accounts for Japanese citizens kidnapped over the years.” Trump is responsible for tearing children from their parents’ arms ... and then “losing” said children. Trump mocked a disabled reporter. Trump treats women as his playthings.
Mr. Kristof, I respect your work and fearlessness. However, I think your optimism is unwarranted.
4
In freely offering so much unsolicited advice -- and his admiration -- to Trump for this North Korea folly, Kristof sounds like the proponents of the invasion of Iraq, who later excused their foolishness by claiming that the invasion was a great idea, but they had no idea the occupation would so fully reflect the incompetence of the Bush administration -- Dubya and Dick Cheney being so obviously thoughtful and well informed about Iraq and the region.
Besides, the administration said it would be over in 3 weeks and wouldn't cost anything at all. We might even make money on it!
How was a pundit to know?
"These are difficult issues and we don’t want to make the nuclear negotiations harder, but let’s never forget that North Korea is not just another nuclear state — and that what’s at stake is not just warheads, but also human lives."
You have to be kidding. Right, we should refuse, hold off or temper any nuclear agreement with N. Korea until they free their political prisoners and have an open society with elections. Yeah, let's do that. Would he also demand an open Internet connection to the rest of the world even during elections?
Next year (week?) Kristof would then lament "lost opportunities" in nuclear disarmament on the Korean paeninsula. No doubt he would call out, with nearly infinite compassion and empathy, that Koreans are still living under the nuclear threat from N. Korea which cannot get agreement from the US on nuclear disarmament.
Kristof gets paid to write this stuff? It kind of reminds me of those text tables that have multiple selections for each part of speech in a sentence. Just pick them at random and he'll show compassion for somebody somewhere in the world that mandates modification of US foreign or domestic policy.
Good gig if you can get it.
I don't think Trump cares about human rights violations. Just look at the human rights violations police and law enforcement inflict on people in this country. I don't hear him complaining. It's more likely that he is cheering them on.
Presumed innocent? Not an issue if you're dead due to law enforcement actions before the incident is over.
1
Looking at our part of the problem begs the question of whether our man in the White House has some sort of early onset disorder. There isn't much we can do with Kim, but should not someone be able to do something about the national loose cannon? He seems to need an intervention of some sort.
No doubt Trump and his supporters will fail to see the irony that while he jets off to meet with Kim in order to capture the ultimately destructive "peace in our time" moment with our enemy he is jetting away from having just blown up the relationship with our closest friends. The fact that Trump can't seem to make a deal that should be easy with our friends but is somehow going to make a meaningful deal with Kim seems quite on the absurd side.
Its hard to imagine how Trump could better act as Putin's stooge then all but destroying, in all but irreparable ways, our relationship with our closest allies in Europe. If Trump isn't actually working for Putin it sure does look like he is.
4
Given that trump declared that he didn't need to prepare for this meeting - he's just going on his own intuition -- do we think he will ask anything of NK other than when he can put up a trump tower? Human rights have never been top of mind for trump, so why start now? He'll make overtures about denuclearization...and he'll invite Kim to the WH because that will look great to his supporters. He will NEVER mention the horrid conditions in NK . Never.
Wouldn't it be incredibly ironic if DT scored a huge foreign policy victory by getting N Korea to give up its nuclear capabilities in exchange for removal of economic sanctions while ignoring these other issues, after cancelling the agreement with Iran that did exactly the same thing? The only thing I can think of that would be more ironic is the press' failure to highlight this duplicity.
1
This is a nice sentiment but nothing more. Trump obviously does not care about human rights in N. Korea or anywhere else. This includes in own country where the children of migrants who have committed no crime are being separated from their parents and held in cages without due process. This is the new normal in America the Deplorable.
I would not be surprised to learn that Kim Jong-un has been told quite clearly what to do/say in Singapour by the his powerful neighbours China and Russia. If so, does that mean that *both* sides are taking orders from Moscow and Beijing? Who needs expert science advisers when the script has already been written.
2
Trumps comments on it only taking 5 seconds to decide on the man he has already disrespected? Malcolm Gladwell's opinions in Blink should not be instead of a functioning government and state department.
It's remarkable that so many people continue to be conned by Trump including Mr. Kristof. Not to worry though as Trump said "“I think within the first minute, I’ll know,” Trump said, further explaining that it would be “just, my touch, my feel — That’s what I do.”
Anyone who supports Trump at any level is his tool. Simply examine his statements and his past record in business . These provide ample evidence of his duplicity and incompetence. Ah yes, he'll shake hands with Kim and know instantly if the meeting will be a success. But yet we continue to project rational behavior to an irrational person.
Evidently, three generations of brainwashing is enough to transform an entire national mentality. Look what has happened to the US since it decreed itself "under God". Three generations of North Koreans have known only extreme discipline and the perception of imminent war.
The wrong logic delivers the bad results.
Democracy is not a priory good. Democracy is just a rule of majority. The majority can be both right and wrong.
Democracy is just a process that ends up with a government and the laws. Those two categories have a potential of being both good and bad.
The communism is just a specific case of the capitalism in which everybody is a capitalist and a stakeholder because the economic capital belongs to the entire society.
The communist government thus have potential of being just and unjust, fair an unfair, human and unhuman, like any other capitalist one.
The coming negotiations will bring to the table two bad sides - the one that oppresses the own people and the one that has waged the endless foreign wars over the last century and just over the last 25 years created the millions of refugees in the Middle East and resettled them all over the world…
How can we learn and improve if we ignore the truth?
1
Donald Trump is a humdinger.
Another way of putting it is that he is President Humdinger, outdoing Mayor Humdinger of Paw Patrol.
President Donald J. Trump Humdinger is a Contrary Ike.
President D. J. Humdinger cannot take no for an answer.
And, also, I just went to a children's park with my 3 1/2 year old grandson. There, when children ran into another child's space, the parents would ask the interloper to apologize; and I thought: 'President Donald J. Trump Humdinger would say, "Go for it; good; push that other child out of the way."
Bottom line is that we need to defeat President Humdinger and the other Humdinger at the ballot boxes and in the courts of law.
The person who was my father was an humdinger who told me to hit the other kid. My father did not breakup the fight.
President Donald J. Mean-Spirited Trump.
2
Under Xi and Putin's coaching, Kim will play Trump like a fine violin and further degrade our foreign policy overall. Trump will acquiesce for the most part since he wants to win the Nobel prize. I would gladly recant if I am wrong but doubt much substance will come from these meetings, only Trump's self aggrandizement.
Regarding Human Rights, Donald Trump lacks the necessary empathy and compassion to care. That's the nature of narcissism. Thus, unless attending to human rights benefit him, those barbaric conditions experienced by North Koreans and orchestrated by Kim Jong Un will most likely be ignored. DT is only interested in attention and self-aggrandizement. And that includes winning acclaim for doing something no other president has done before. Plus (in his dreams) a Noble Peace Prize. Then it's back to his crass disrespect for just about everyone, including our allies, who his paranoia perceive as either being unfair (trade) or as threats (fake news), and his daily production of chest-beatings and insulting inhumane tweets.
1
We're giving Trump too much credit for this summit. The south Korean president has been brilliant in bringing about this meeting. He desires peace. Let's leave it up to him and the people of North Korea to decide how to handle the human rights issues that plague North Korea.
3
Trump says torture “works”. What standing does HE have to try and change Kim’s practices?
2
Trump does not give a spray tan about North Korea's human rights record.
With full knowledge, he will be meeting with an "honorable" (his word) man who recently executed his own relatives--he had his uncle shot by firing squad and had his half brother assassinated by two women in an airport by poison.
He released three US citizens recently so Trump could get a photo op with them getting off a plane, but he also tortured and let Otto Warmbier die in a North Korean prison only a few months ago. Apparently that was not a big deal for Trump.
He, his father and grandfather have allowed millions of their own people to starve and suffer while they lived in luxurious splendor and spent the vast majority of their resources on the army and developing nuclear weapons.
And finally, we should not expect Trump to be concerned about Kim's human rights record because Trump has shown little concern for human rights in OUR country. Look at his response to Charlottesville and similar events, his treatment of immigrant families and children, disregard for health issues (by countless attempts to defund Planned Parenthood and gutting the ACA), and his refusal to take even minimal steps to do anything about gun violence in schools or elsewhere.
This is all about Trump claiming that "he alone" did something Obama didn't or couldn't do. Whether anything comes of it or not, he will claim a big "win" and whip up his supporters. His big hurry is to do it before mid-term elections.
2
Trump has the opportunity to engage Kim Jun Un in a personal way few,other world leaders can. When two men who lead through dissembling so successfully meet there is a chance for real bonding. Could Trump convince Kim that he should lie more about the economy and less about human rights? Who knows. Let’s wait and see.
Rocket Man and the Dotard, is just another episode of Trumpistan with our hero visiting Singapore for a play day with his nemesis in the black suit. To believe there will be any substance to this meeting other than bravado and hyperbole from both sides. is wishful thinking at best. It is great they are having this meeting but I believe it is more illusion and stage craft than actual substantive negotiation. I hope I am wrong and it leads to more productive meetings in the future.
Having lived in South Korea and worked directly with Koreans, I'd say that you've never been stonewalled if you haven't been stonewalled by a Korean. You may as well not exist if you are trying to say something they don't want to hear.
This is a meeting between two people that will be trying to out-con each other.
Both will be looking to get something without giving up anything.
So, expect nothing but a lot of bluster.
2
All well and good until you consider that Trump would like to enact those abuses here. He wants the same authoritarian power as Kim, complete with all the forced adulation.
I'm not worried about Trump discussing human rights issues with Kim ahead of nuclear ones. I don't think the phrase "human rights" has ever left Trump's lips.
The insanely cruel and relentless human rights violations by the North Korean regime against its citizens are inseparable from the headline story of the nuclear weapons program.
One of the reasons why Donald Trump’s agreement to have the Singapore Summit was so ill-advised is the fact that meeting with Kim Jong-un gives status and legitimacy to Kim.
An agreement by North Korea to suspend testing and further growth of its nuclear arsenal would not be worth the paper it is written on without independent, unannounced inspections by experts.
The United States already has lost just by scheduling a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Kim.
Every prior American administration since North Korea began uranium enrichment has recognized that talks should occur only at a much lower level.
2
With respect to the upcoming meetings, Trump is arguably the least important of the major players. He is outranked by the North and South Koreans, and the Chinese.
If the Chinese are not amenable to what might be suggested, it is hard to see how anything happens. If Trump gets petulant because the process does not flatter his ego enough, that might not stop a potential gradual reconciliation between North and South Korea.
I do agree with the observation that, given how miserably the Trump administration treated US citizens in Puerto Rico, it seems disingenuous to expect him to give much credence to human rights in North Korea. We are getting ahead of ourselves.
3
Trump lets Puerto Rico twist in the wind, yet you expect him to push for human rights in NK? We know what this meeting is all about - Trump. It's the same with everything else. Just ask any of our former allies. And, all the while, crickets from the crave GOP, which may one day wake up to the realization that its ox is being gored too. What price tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy? Is this nation too high a price? What about the planet?
8
It is only a tax cut for corporations. Actual people will pay more one way or another as a result of this ludicrously named law.
1
These top rated comments are all about Trump. This Opinion Piece is about people and human rights. It's abundantly clear Trump is primarily motivated by image (his own) and $ (also his own, real or virtual) so let's get past that and share our commitment (or not) to improving conditions for people, families and groups (in North Korea and elsewhere.)
Kudos Nicholas Kristof for personifying with actions, deeds and words, a commitment to improving the plight of those often ignored or unknown.
9
As the US has about the highest percentage of incarcerated citizens, disproportionately members of minorities, as well as the highest rate of gun violence, making it the ONLY country where "school shooting" is a part of normal conversation, this is yet another example of American Exceptionalism. "Do as we say, don't do as we do."
I don't doubt Mr. Kristof's sincerity, but in view of so many things and, particularly, in view of the ease with which the American political establishment as acquiesced in Donald Trump's throwing off the reins of civility, it would be too fake to start lecturing the DPRK on its human rights record. It would also be highly counterproductive.
Regrettably, how the North Koreans treat their population is irrelevant and will remain so for the foreseeable future. What moves us is the nuclear capability they have created for themselves. Containing the threat this poses should be the overriding concern.
And even this will be a tall order, given Donald the Magnificent's inflated idea of his own qualities as a deal maker. If this goes wrong, as it might in so many ways, what awaits him is not yet another bankruptcy...
15
Mr. Kristof, what are you smoking? Have you been asleep for the last 18 months?
For Trump, N. Korea’s human right record is a plus. Trump admires the the leaders with the worst human rights records.
28
Wasn’t it Obama who praised Cuba?
1
Nick, you are a good man, but sometimes I wonder where you are coming from? While we no longer importing slaves and kill Native Americans we are putting children in cages. And you think Trump will address North Korea's human rights issues?
6
While it is admirable to suggest this Donald Trump doesn't care about human rights or people on any level. So let's not be optimistic.
9
i remember well North Korea's starving millions during the Kenneth Star-led investigation into the Pres. Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal. I wrote the Times then that it was shameful and tragic that the U.S. would spend over $35 million on this torrid matter when we could have been aiding North Koreans and building trust and goodwill with its citizens. I hope South Korea's leader can do a better job.
13
North Korea denied the famine and refused all aid.
4
What is absolutely amazing is that we are even discussing the possibility of moving beyond nuclear disarmament toward addressing human rights issues. This would have been unthinkable, just two years ago. Apparently Kim is interested in transforming his country into a commercially and technologically advanced nation. We should help him with this--if he honestly gives up nuclear weapons. If North Korea develops a commercial class, some degree of human rights improvements must follow. It won't look like the United States or South Korea any time soon, but any alleviation of the suffering and oppression of North Korean should be welcome. In other words, we can achieve both goals without any hand-wringing over human rights abuses. I believe in the sanctity of human rights as much as anyone, but we have done nothing about human rights abuses in North Korea for decades. To now use those abuses now to scuttle our first opportunity to bring North Korea into the fold of civilized nations appears to be an attempt by liberals to derail any success by Trump, whatever the cost to humanity.
2
Economic sanctions have brought N. Korea to the negotiating table.
3
Actually Rita you have it backwards, the ignition of a thermonuclear device, more commonly known as a hydrogen fusion bomb, is what Forced the US to the Table, that and the fact that NK has the delivery vehicle as well.
The Hawaii missile scare also had something to do with it, showing just how vulnerable we could be to such weaponry ourselves.
Trump's hand has been forced into this encounter.
This question remains: What is Donald John Trump's primary mission? How can a man who daily violates an oath of office effectively promote democracy, and freedoms that flow from practicing democracy as envisioned by its originators?
Are Kim and company simply providing cover for a man who has no demonstrated history of supporting human rights being used to provide cover for an agenda that, in pure form, could be viewed as a threat to our constitutional democracy?
16
His primary mission is to appear like a serious important man. That might include effecting an agreement that is beneficial, but I think that is a side effect.
7
In 1966, I attended the International Congress of Linguists in Bucharest, where I was lodged at the university, at the rate of .05 US per day Vienna back market rates, and where there was a loudspeaker mounted up near the ceiling out of reach. The loudspeaker came on a five in the morning and there was no turning it off. I came with about $40 worth of back market Rumanian lei and a friend of mine and I went to the most expensive restaurant we could find and as we checked out we asked for "the most expensive restaurant in town" so we could use up all of the lei. The restaurant owner was befuddled and I had to leave my friend with $20 for the second week of the conference. Thanks, Mr. Kristof, for telling me what the loudspeaker in the university bedroom was probably saying.
2
John Adams, our second president, was famous for many things, among which was a resolve AS president that as a nation we would endeavor to uphold democratic ideals and market-based economic practices within the constraints of our own borders, and depend on the social and material outcomes those actions produced to serve as compelling examples to other societies of how beneficial such ideals could be to them; but NOT to seek to impose our own worldview on anyone else. Clearly, Trump has embraced this resolve and is not going to be our most evangelist president. I support him (and John Adams) in this, in large part because while one approach is manageable and attainable the other is not.
We do NOT have an obligation or a destiny to try to save the world. Each society must succeed or fail at saving ITSELF. If asked, we always should be willing and prepared to offer advice, even material aid in this quest; but to do more, to condition effective foreign relations on the extent to which others seek to ape us, is counter-productive, will cause others to despise us, even hate us (as some do), will empower adversaries and will fail at the central goal of global stability.
Trump’s purpose with Kim in Singapore is to begin the process of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. That’s it … for now. Having accomplished that we can move on to other things that Kim’s North Korea does, including hacking us and using the world as a killing field to remove inconvenient, dissident North Koreans.
5
But it should never be that they become a mini-me and adopt our folkways, which is deeply offensive to many societies and ineffective, to boot. There has always been economic exploitation by an elite of its people, there have always been immense gulfs between such a despoiled population and its leaders, there have always been near-failed when not patently failed societies, and profound poverty. Trump cannot change that with spoutings of human rights abuses, but by doing so he certainly might torpedo a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.
North Koreans by the nature of their culture permitted the rise and continued sufferance of the Kim family. They will either do something about that largely themselves, or they will eventually become the Etruscans, subsumed into a more successful society.
2
John Adams lived in a world where the oceans were an effective barrier for the young country, isolationism was feasible and where the young country had its hands full defending itself from the world powers.
7
RIA:
Perhaps, but as a general guiding principle for the ages for a young country that had the potential even then to be its richest and most powerful one day, it was a superb one.
Of course, in the times of John Adams, a U.S. president didn't need to deal with a bumptiously blue California. And, then, he didn't advocate "isolationism", either; but merely a respectful global citizenry.
I certainly agree the human rights issue should be brought up when Mr. Trump meets Mr. Kim.
If you ask me to give one of the best things MacArthur brought to Japan during 45-51 it is a notion of human rights, which has not yet become sacred here but remains even if covertly eroded by contrasting it with harmony (which is supposed to be a Japanese thing). Even before WWII Japan enjoyed a certain degree of political freedom but it soon collapsed by the surge of militarism since we did not have a counter notion to "sacred lineage". (Well it is silly but it sill stays.) Violations of human rights were committed abroad and domestically and objections against invasions were never done (as far as I know) from the perspective of human rights.
North Korea's situation is a bit similar to Japan's before the war. I'd rather want to see human rights taught at school in North Korea.
2
But it took a major war and unconditional surrender for MacArthur to get to impose his will. Would you have America go to war with NK and China again so NK people get better human rights?
I certainly agree with Kristof that we should try to push for a better human rights record in North Korea.
But let's get denuclearization done first. And let's set up a dialog with Kim and with China to achieve a gradual relaxation of repression.
We also need to be careful, since there is much we do not know about the North Korean prison system.
Estimates are that the rate of incarceration in North Korea is roughly the same as that in the US.
Except for North Korea and the island nation of Seychelles, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
That conflicts with our self-image that we are somehow a free people.
Indeed, the incarceration rate in the US has climbed in recent years because politicians want to be seen as "tough on crime."
This is actually the wrong attitude.
We have many poor in the US, many who do not have full health care because they are poor. Many of these poor wind up in prison because they are mentally ill.
American politics focuses too much on slogans. There is little discussion of serious issues.
For example, population growth makes resources scarce and threatens to fray the safety net.
So we need actual DISCUSSIONS somewhere about how to encourage smaller family size.
We also need to stop illegal immigration. It bothers me that so many liberals do not see that ignoring previously passed laws, and letting people cross the border without documentation undercuts our attempt to live in a society based upon laws.
2
So chillingly cruel.
We're nothing like them, but North Korea is the only country on earth (by estimate) to exceed us in incarceration rates.
There are some equivalencies.
Hundreds of thousands imprisoned for the thought crime of liking and using drugs. A thought crime propagandized relentlessly over decades on American televisions. We all know race works, similarly to thought crime, in criminal justice, too.
50% of US inmates failed to achieve literacy in school and then, have few means to escape poverty. The world's richest nation believes it can't fix that dynamic with compassion.
How cruel that whole families go to concentration camps for watching banned tv, but we've got shoplifters serving life in a cage, under the perversity of 3 strikes.
Under this violent president, our prosecutors have been instructed, without exception or consideration, to go for the harshest punishments possible.
Isn't that systemized sadism too?
Americans are used to the perspective from the top of the mountain, looking down.
From another view, our failings, might seem ugly. Or to have more simple solutions, than we think they do.
Thank heavens! we have no conditions nearly as bad as those described in this article.
But just as we are odd ducks to preach disarmament, so are we on human rights, considering the millions of men and women disposed of in our cruel prisons.
We have a far, far better government than North Korea.
It could be much, much, better than this.
17
I just read as much of this as I could stand.
There's no comparison.
https://www.ibanet.org/Article/NewDetail.aspx?ArticleUid=8ae0f29d-4283-4...
It is a victimless behavior based on personal and private preferences. An existential crime. A personal makes a choice about their mental state. They wish to be stoned, and they can get life in prison for acting on that.
Our acceptance that drug use is a criminality which needs to be punished along the lines of murder, is the result of intentional propaganda created by Nixon's cabinet to fight perceived political enemies: the anti war movement and the increasingly powerful black community.
One of the architects, John Erlichman admitted this with complete candor before his death. He said that there was no threat that made it necessary to treat drug use as a national emergency that required us to wage a literal war with literal prisoners. Purely divisive politics based on racial hate.
The propaganda was repeated by each subsequent presidential campaign to prove that they, like Nixon, were going to keep America safe from an empowered black community or anti war intellectuals.
It's been so effective that intelligent people can't see that it's obscene to send a child to prison for ten years for holding a plastic bag containing chemicals in his pocket. We could have just as easily responded to problems which arise from drug use with compassion.
Funny how the supporters of the Iran nuclear deal rejected all attempts to bring up "extraneous" matters re the negotiations then: Hezbollah, Iranian terrorism, arms developments, and human rights, especially of religious minorities, all of this was considered as unnecessary baggage when trying to hammer out a deal.
Why bring this up? It will kill the negotiations, opponents of the deal were told.
Has Mr. Kristof learned perhaps from this incorrect approach or is he just setting the bar higher for Mr. Trump than it was set for Mr. Obama.
3
I believe that I read words written by Mr. Kristof to the effect that insisting on human rights should not derail talks about controlling nuclear weapons in North Korea. He went on the say that human rights are still important and should be part of future discussions.
I also believe that similar thinking went into the Iran discussions. There was hope that Iran would change. So far that have proved to be false hope, but there are a lot of historical enmities and local politics that get in the way.
It may prove to be a similar situation in North Korea. It isn't just about the USA and what we want.
6
So unfair!
Donnie is always being abused by anyone and everyone that expects him to understand the context of an issue.
So unfair!
1
Did you read the column? N. Kristoff is saying nukes now, human rights later.
Mr Kristof, I fully agree that the US needs to bring human rights to the table, whether on June 12 or subsequently. I very much doubt that Trump will do so, given his deplorable record on human rights, but it never hurts to encourage right behavior.
But I'd like to return to your last column, in which you criticized those concerned about potential disasters from this meeting as 'childish'. In the intervening period, Trump asserted that he didn't need to prepare much for his meeting, and this morning's paper detailed the complete absence of nuclear policy experts on the American team. Trump departed Toronto today by declaring that he would trust his instincts and his experience in making deals to size up Kim and determine whether the North Koreans were serious about negotiation. Does that reassure you? Is it childish to express concerns about possible deals being struck by someone with this cavalier approach to extremely technical negotiation? When he departed the G7 by insulting the leaders of his allies, including PM Abe, North Korea's most proximate neighbor, does that leave you hopeful for a successful conclusion to the meeting? I'm willing to consider last week's lapse as a momentary brain freeze.
11
As with Iran, we need to keep our eye on the prize we seek.
In Iran, we wanted to end the nuclear threat. We made a deal on that. It was not a deal on Hezbollah or Yemen. It was just nuclear. Now Trump has blown up the nuclear deal over those other goals.
Here Kristof risks the same. Do we want to get rid of those nukes, or do we want to do regime change? Do we want to keep things as they are? Do we imagine without regime change Kim will agree to be nice?
You can't have it all. You can't have a lot of good things. You have to choose.
I'd choose ending the risk of nuclear war. We can sort out other things in time with other ways.
Yes they are important. I did not deny that. I said we can't have it all, because we can't.
11
"I'd choose ending the risk of nuclear war."
In a limited nuclear war where 100 cities are incinerated, enough particulate debris would be funneled into the stratosphere (where it won't rain out) to create a nuclear winter that would decimate surface life on the planet within about a decade. Global leaders realize that no one can win a nuclear war. And China does not want any nuclear skirmish in its own backyard, either.
There are some good recent videos on the Internet of Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky discussing nuclear war.
This all amounts to politics for China and North Korea (largely a China puppet); China's principal goal is to limit U.S. influence on the Korean peninsula and in Asia generally. China already has the U.S. on the ropes in the South China Sea (and the Malacca Straits in particular).
China plays a long game of chess for global domination. If it gets financial aid from the West with North Korea, while still maintaining control there, then China wins. For Kim, any (perceived) reduction in total reliance on China is a good thing. For checkers-playing Trump, all this show amounts to a photo-op, a piece of paper he can hold up with his signature on it, and more ego-stroking murmurs of a Nobel Prize (that he won't get). The adults and the child will all have some things to take away. But nukes won't be leaving the peninsula (except probably long-range ones that could hit the U.S.), and substantive human rights improvements will take much more time.
5
Why would North Korea give up its only protection against the US?. The writer wails against NK's prison camps but our prisons are so full hardened felons are let out early to make room for new inmates. The writer should write about Detroit, Camden etc and let other countries sort out their own problems.
1
There used to be a distinction between governments based upon fear and those based upon terror. In the former people were controlled by fear of not conforming in the later of never knowing who was going to be targeted for punishment next to be made to live in fear of unknown by ever present danger. There is no reforming the totalitarian regime in North Korea. It is an institution that will collapse into anarchy if the system of terror is eliminated. It can only operate under the presumption that all members of society are enemies if they are not totally under control of the regime.
1
If only this meeting wasn't about self-aggrandizing theater. Trump's only goal is to make the world safe for Trump. There's something terribly terribly wrong with this man,
40
Let's not kid ourselves. Trump only wishes that HE could have the same type of Government as NK. The absolute power, the unquestioned authority, the (enforced) worship from the population. He and Kim are truly kindred souls, Kim was merely born into the right family, at the right time and place. They deserve one another. Seriously.
100
Whatever happened to serious,substantive summits like the one with Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland.There were no theatrics and missiles and human rights were discussed.It was not an immediate success but an important milestone.The Singapore meeting will be a meet and greet, long on photo ops and short on substance.Mr.Kim has always wanted the legitimacy of a meeting wth an American president.Mr.Trump loves the limelight.There will be minimum talk and maximum theatrics.
31
Or, perhaps the president will turn on his heel after that minute, and return home, vowing to blow NK up. That might appease his appetite for theatre even more.
4
There may well be a conversation to be had about North Koreans' human rights violations, but Trump is the last person fit for that topic. Trump cheers for human rights violations from Putin, Duterte, Sisi, the Saudi Royals, and more. What most of us would call cruel, Trump calls strong leadership. His own bent is towards more violations in his own country - Trump has called for torture and is flippant with the death penalty. He couldn't care less about the atrocities potential refugees are fleeing. Who is Trump to show someone else a moral compass?
The best, most realistic hope is that North Korea will see too many benefits to making peace with South Korea and denuclearizing to turn away. Being brought into the fold of other nations may slowly loosen their vice grip on the citizenry. But Trump can't talk them into treating people more humanely.
19
Trump has emphasized how wonderful life will be for North Korea if they agree to denuclearize. I'm waiting for Kim to ask--maybe in that first minute that Trump finds so illuminating for judging the success of a relationship: "How can I be sure you'll treat me and my people better than your American citizens of Puerto Rico?"
60
Or If Canada cannot trust you, why should I?
6
FYI, I don’t see Trump touching on human rights, Mr. Kristof. It’s not an interest of his. (And you’re giving him advice here. He doesn’t take advice.)
I heartened you’re optimistic. I’m not. What can come of this? North Korea becomes our ally while Canada becomes an enemy?
67
Oh please. The only conversation Trump will want to have with Kim on the subject of human rights violations is wanting pointers on how to speed the process in the US.
47
or about building a trump golf course in north korea.
3
I'm in favor of eliminating all nuclear weapons in NKorea
The first step in the negotiations is the denuclearization of North Korea. The issues are what is kim initially giving up & what is trump going to give away to achieve his goals.
My concern is trumps lack of experience & discipline as a diplomat/head of state can't match kims political skills & years of Korean duplicity.
The major reward for both sides is the ultimate success of peace on the Korean Peninsula.
I agree that discussing human rights is a major issue, but is kim willing to address that issue in the short or long term, is subject to suspicion, with a long history of a Communist Orwellian Regime.
He has a multi-layer agenda for which he may be willing to appear to address all issues.
His gains are recognition on the world stage, economic stability & the leader who finally brought peace to the peninsula, when no one else could. Our gains are vital to the world & the continent.
North Korea has the technology to build a nuclear arsenal, giving up the hardware is not an issue since they have the software.
Our experience, even with stringent verification & inspections in few years the capability to have a secret program is feasible.
One unlikely conspiracy theory is that kim is a die hard communist & president for life,may fantasize as a grandiose dictator that the unification of the Korean Peninsula (in the distant future) may be quasi: politically communist, economically socialist country under his rule.
1
North Korea is a drain on China's economy, and China is sick of it. China sees Trump as a vehicle to mitigate its economic hemorrhaging. Nothing will change with nuclear weapons in the region: China has them, North Korea now has them, and South Korea has them as a U.S. proxy. Can human rights improve in North Korea? Maybe, but China controls North Korea, and China doesn't have a great track record in that area. Hopefully, over time, we can get more food and basic supplies into North Korea and diminish the populations in these labor camps. Any progress with human rights will be a collateral benefit of China's main goal: China getting financial relief from the West with its losses in North Korea. It's all about China's long-term plan to maintain dominance in Asia and, ultimately, to control the world. Aiding with human rights in North Korea is meaningful to China only as it may serve as good public relations; the real aim is for China to increase its economic strength in preparation for its long and premeditated slog ahead.
6
Nobody comes to mind less qualified than Trump to deal with North Korea's despot Such attributes as humanity, decency, honesty and compassion make Trump my last choice for negotiating with President Kim.
81
"We shouldn’t make improvements in human rights a condition of those [de-nuclearization] talks for fear of causing them to collapse." Not to worry. President Trump cares no more about human rights than does Kim Jong-un, except when he can demagogue the issue for his own partisan gain.
In any case, our President says that he can "size up" Mr. Kim in the first minute of their meeting. Who knows? The summit might turn out to be the most expensive sixty seconds in global history, especially if Kim accurately sizes up Mr. Trump and judges him a non-starter.
32
To sum it all, Trump at the Summit,
Is even unable to hum it,
Lack of preparation
With IQ frustration,
The Donald is likely to bum it.
He boasts he is fully prepared,
His ego is tangled, ensnared,
Lack of comprehension
Despite full attention
Shows what, with full madness, he dared.
He thinks a Nobel he’ll be earning,
To be viewed a genius, he’s yearning,
Oft’ in solitude
In full crassitude,
For world adulation is burning.
It may not be a neither-nor
We might avert nuclear war,
Despite specious spin
Better angels might win,
And I’d be o’erjoyed to the core.
57
A great one Larry.
2
Like a fine wine, you improve with age! Thank you.
1
The Trump doctrine will long be remembered:
"Every autocrat a friend, every ally an enemy."
Basically, you can cut deals with personal benefits with autocrats, while allies are an annoying bunch who just don't know how to deal.
Praising autocrats like Putin, Kim, Xi, Saudi kings and others has another benefit to Trump. It causes the press to go into outrage mode, burying the growing Russian investigation and other scandals. W Bush took a beating over Katrina and Trump has suffered little by ignoring Puerto Rico, simply because so many other scandals have quickly followed.
But Mueller apparently isn't distracted, issuing new indictments every month. The walls are closing in on Trump and his desperation is revealed in ever more provocative behavior.
54
Trump, Kim, Moon and Ji are all going to be perceived as ‘winners’ during this Singapore summit.
True to form, Trump and Kim will do the photo ops and the public statements will be cordial. Trump will not play this too fast because a reality show has many episodes and he wants to have drama over several months; kind of like it was in a season of ‘pro’ wrestling.
The big achievement in the first round will be a formal ending of the Korean War and this will gain attention for the hard work of President Moon while Trump grabs the spotlight for himself.
Human rights? Trump will push a little for Prime Minister Abe’s desire to repatriate Japanese citizens being held prisoner by the North after some had even been snatched from beaches.
After the Summit, there will be more meetings and maybe a visit by Kim and Moon together at the White House. Like wrestlers, Trump and Kim will have a few spats but both will come back for more talks.
Human rights? Denuclearization? Pulling outcome/all U.S. troops from South Korea? Unlikely there will be much progress here but Trump wants the spotlight on him and on that, he has been preparing to do this all of his life.
For a man who wants to deflect and distract from his problems with Robert Mueller, this show with Kim will be the spectacle that Trump craves.
109
JT FLORIDA Insightful comment! Also, a most likely accurate prediction about how this Trump/Kim reality show will unfold. As a narcissist Trump has one thing on his mind, himself. Thus he will use this summit and others to follow as distractions and also most importantly as means for additional self-aggrandizement.
24
Yes, this show with Kim will be the spectacle that Trump craves. But Mueller is working quietly, so quietly, and the spectacle cannot last forever. A time of reckoning will come no matter how long Donnie thinks he can dance with the devil and keep Mueller at bay. The dance is going to come to an end soon.
15
He wants to make sure that the Nobel committee has plenty of images of tRump being the peacemaker...
3
"But I also believe that Trump can and should explain to Kim that his regime will never be fully respected unless it improves on human rights and accounts for Japanese citizens kidnapped over the years."
Nicholas, how can you write this knowing Trump as you do? Since when has the president shown any concern for human rights, whether here at home or abroad?
He worships dictatorships in the Philippines, Turkey, Russia, and never ever chastizes the way they run their countries. If anything he agrees with them, suggesting that drug dealers be given the death penalty as they are in the Philippines--which sure makes his most recent pardon truly head-scratching.
So, no, I don't expect Donald Trump to speak up for human rights to Kim Jong-un in Singapore, because we know how little importance he places on them in terms of foreign policy in general.
By his actions and his rants, he has shown his true colors, which are to always support the causes of strongmen over the softer side of diplomacy.
167
@ ChristineMcM, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy and agree with virtually all of your comments, as they are always very well thought out and right on target.
6
"As President Trump prepares to meet Kim Jong-un in Singapore, the focus is rightly on nuclear weapons."
No, the focus is on Trump looking good. He is spending no time preparing for this meeting. He doesn't know what a nuclear weapon is. He has no technical expert with him. He has hired no technical experts. He is all package and no product.
161
Trump's brand of solipsistic narcissism precludes him from worrying about anyone else, ever. Consider Trump's hurricane response in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Charlottesville, drilling off the California coast, as well as pulling out of the Iran deal, the Paris climate accord, and the TPP; it's always and only about Trump and his ego. He couldn't care less about human rights in North Korea, and Kim doesn't, and China doesn't (China is just one notch above North Korea with the way it ruthlessly monitors its people). Forget about any progress with human rights with this meeting. Trump simply wants a "win" with a photo-op, a piece of paper with his signature that he can hold up for the cameras, and whispers of his Nobel Prize getting prepped for delivery. We'll need to elect a completely different kind of president if we actually want to help people around the world; that sort of thing is not in the cards this time around.
18
When Mr. Kristof, in his op/ed piece last week, lambasted Trump's critics for dismissing the possibility that his tete-a-tete with Li'l Kim could conceivably yield a nuclear-free outcome on the Korean Peninsula, I wrote in complaining that the author was diminishing his own stature as a champion of human rights by placing all of his eggs in the nuclear basket. I'm glad to see that here, at least, he's being guided by his conscience and reminding us of the despicable nature of Kim's autocratic regime. Still, how can denuclearization be accomplished without giving in on the sanctions issue? After all, what else could Little Rocket Man conceivably demand of Agent Orange? (Not that he's likely to flush all of his nukes down the toilet in any case.) And, in the end, what difference does it all make in the context of human rights? The Donald is already on record as a proponent of torture whose international idols include such whole-hearted humanitarians as Putin, Xi, Erdogan and Netanyahu. The rights of Kim's citizens- no, make that "subjects"- are simply not at stake in whatever deal our feckless leader is hoping to make. It's good that he got a trio of American prisoners released from the PDRK's compassionate penal system. The likelihood that he could talk Kim into opening up his gulags to international inspection is, however, just about on a par with his going on a fat-free diet- and that's assuming, of course, that he gives a faint damn about making the effort.
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"[L]et’s never forget that North Korea is not just another nuclear state — and that what’s at stake is not just warheads, but also human lives."
What cares Trump of human lives? Are not Puerto Rican Americans humans? Does Trump care about Puerto Rican lives lost and the ongoing suffering of these Americans caused by Hurricane Maria?
Anyone who would answer "yes" to that, should then feel fully confident that Trump will raise the issue of human rights in North Korea.
But instead of fantasy, face the facts. Trump is a terrible excuse for a human being, much less a president concerned about human suffering. Anywhere. Period.
If we want to bring about an human rights awakening in North Korea, we should look inward and as a first step, see if it is possible to awaken the consciousness and consciences of Trump supporters. Because if they are lost, like the North Koreans subjected to loudspeaker propaganda, then our government is lost, America is lost. But,
America is worth saving. The ideals of America, the promise of America, are what generations sacrificed their blood and lives to uphold. Surely we can do no less than turn America blue in November. Surely we can fuel our determination to save America with the outrage Trump and Republicans have wrought.
And when Congress is blue, Trump and Republicans can be held accountable...beginning with their human rights violations in Puerto Rico.
Only then can America have any moral authority to upbraid North Korea.
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I hesitate to believe that turning the government blue will have such far ranging benefits. To say that the Democratic Party would be better at governing than the present pretenders is like saying that the rabbit is faster than the tortoise, a big duh. But as much as I find many admirable traits in Barack Obama, he was nothing but Bush lite in failing to reign in our nation's aggressive military degradations around the world.
I, too, wish that President Obama had done more to rein in our profit driven military/industrial war machine. It helps to remember that his agenda was opposed at every step by Republicans whose stated goal was not to govern, but to prevent Obama from governing. The fact that they have yet to pay for their perfidy at the polling booth is a fault on the American voters, not on President Obama.
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