Misleading the American People, Again...

Trump Is Misleading the American People About North Korea

Kim Jong-un is a threat. It's time for the president to say so.

By TOM DONILON

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are set to meet this week in Hanoi for their second summit. Diplomacy is clearly the preferable path, but the president has not leveled with the American people about the nature of the North Korean nuclear threat or about what his outreach has accomplished. The seriousness of the threat requires candor from the Oval Office.

There are two basic problems heading into the summit. First, the president is either misleading the public or is dangerously mistaken about North Korea, falsely promising that its nuclear program is constrained and that the threat has receded. Second, and relatedly, the president’s repeated claims to be in “no rush” to reach a deal reflect a serious analytical error, since, despite a pause in nuclear and missile tests, North Korea’s nuclear program is in fact advancing by the day. At a minimum, the United States should insist that North Korea meaningfully freeze its program during the pendency of the talks.

“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” President Trump tweeted upon returning from his last meeting with Kim, in Singapore last June. This assessment is demonstrably untrue.

North Korea has not taken any irreversible steps to denuclearize. Last year in Singapore, Kim agreed to work toward the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a North Korean formulation that implies reciprocal U.S. concessions prior to denuclearization. Without any specifics or deliverables, and coupled with discussion of “new relations” and “security guarantees” between the U.S. and North Korea, the joint Trump-Kim statement from Singapore in fact represents a step backward from previous North Korean commitments.

There is no evidence North Korea has committed to denuclearization. Just the opposite. The president’s own envoy for North Korea, Steven Biegun, recently acknowledged that the North Koreans have given “little indication that they have yet made the decision to completely dismantle” their nuclear weapons capability. CIA Director Gina Haspel told Congress earlier this month: “[T]he regime is committed to developing a long range nuclear armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States.” Rather than be honest about that challenge, the president has attempted to discredit it. When Director of Intelligence Dan Coats testified that North Korea seeks to “retain its WMD capability,” Trump lashed out on Twitter, calling the U.S. relationship with North Korea the “best it has ever been.”

Further, while there have been no nuclear or ballistic missile tests since 2017, the program is far from frozen; all evidence suggests that North Korea continues to upgrade and expand its nuclear weapon and missile infrastructure. I do not know of any dissent on this point by any credible analyst.

Here is what we know. North Korea continues to produce fissile material, enabling it to build increasing numbers of nuclear weapons. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed as much in Senate testimony last summer. A recent expert report estimated that in 2018, North Korea developed enough plutonium and highly enriched uranium to build an additional 5-7 nuclear weapons, and that the regime continued to advance “all phases” of its weapons program. As recently as November, the IAEA observed expanded operations at Yongbyon, the country’s main facility producing fissile material.

North Korea also continues to expand its missile development and production facilities. And as researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies have shown using satellite imagery, Pyongyang maintains as many as 20 undeclared ballistic missile bases where it continues to advance its missile program. North Korea will not negotiate over elements of the program it does not disclose.

Despite North Korea’s ongoing nuclear progress, Trump claims to be on “no pressing time schedule” to achieve denuclearization. Last September, noting the pause in North Korea’s nuclear tests, the president insisted, “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

This is a serious mischaracterization of the dimension of time in the negotiations. A temporary pause in testing, after all, is hardly the same as a freeze in the nuclear program. That’s why President Obama’s negotiations with Iran became serious only after Iran agreed to stop installing new centrifuges, to cease enriching high-grade uranium, and to allow unprecedented inspections of its nuclear sites.

The lack of constraints on North Korea’s nuclear program is significant because, put simply, numbers matter. Given North Korea’s history of proliferation, every additional nuclear weapon in the country’s arsenal adds to the risk. The more nuclear weapons or fissile material North Korea has, the harder it becomes to understand the program or, in the event of a diplomatic solution, to verify its destruction.

And an adversary’s large nuclear stockpile poses a far greater threat to the U.S. homeland than a small one. Our current missile defense system is tactical rather than strategic: It was built to defend against a rogue state’s small arsenal but could be overwhelmed by a nuclear rival. In strategic terms, the difference between a North Korea with 20 nuclear weapons and 100 nuclear weapons is huge.

The bottom line is Kim now has it both ways: He enjoys the diplomatic spotlight and also gets to continue advancing his nuclear weapons program. At this rate, particularly with the international sanctions regime flagging, Kim has every incentive to drag out the talks. The only remedy is to insist that North Korea place verifiable limits on its nuclear program, beyond a mere testing pause, during negotiations.

While a reduction in tensions is to be applauded, I fear that what may result is the U.S. acceptance of a North Korean nuclear weapons state with a large arsenal and a weak verification regime.

The American people, as well as our allies, have important decisions to make about the level of risk from North Korea we are prepared to accept. The least we can demand of our president is that he soberly take stock of the threat and deliver an honest assessment of it to the nation.