Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:30 pm
When President Biden was asked what his preconditions were for meeting the North Koreans, he made it clear that he won’t get played as Trump did.
Video:
Biden makes it clear that he wouldn’t get played for a sucker like Trump was with North Korea. pic.twitter.com/MCB9n26VOi
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— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) May 21, 2021
President Biden said:
Well, what I never do is I never make a judgment on what a man or woman is going to do or not do based on what they said. We’ll see if he made any commitment. Then I would meet with him. If there was a commitment on which we met. And the commitment has to be that there is a discussion about his nuclear arsenal. And if it’s merely a means by which, how do we deescalate what they’re doing. And, so, if that were the case, I would not meet unless there was some outline made and my secretary of state would negotiate how we would proceed.
But what I would not do is do what had been done in the recent past. I would not give him all he’s looking for, international recognition as legitimate and, say, give them what allowed him to move in a direction of appearing to be more — how can I say it? More serious about he wasn’t at all serious about. I would have to know specifics. But the idea of never meeting with North Korea, I would make sure that me and my team had met with their counterparts and know exactly what we’re meeting on.
Biden would do the opposite of what Trump did. He would listen to his team, get clear and specific commitments on what the meeting would be about, make N. Korea’s nuclear program a precondition for any conversation, and not give Kim Jong-un the legitimacy that he desperately craves on the world stage.
The days of America being played by a murderous small-time despot are over.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
