Donald Trump’s deal with Kim Jong Un goes up in flames
With all that has since transpired with Donald Trump’s various worsening scandals, it’s difficult to believe that his North Korea summit debacle was just two and a half weeks ago. Trump came away from that summit with a “deal” in which Kim Jong Un made literally no binding concessions of any kind, even as Trump falsely characterized it as a victory. Sure enough, it’s only taken this long for the deal to predictably go up in flames.
Donald Trump announced via Twitter that he had gotten Kim Jong Un to agree to denuclearization, even though their nine paragraph deal didn’t require Kim to deconstruct his nuclear program, and provided no method for the United States to inspect the program. In reality, Kim only grew interested in making a “deal” with Trump after his primary nuclear missile testing site collapsed. Palmer Report and a number of other pundits predicted that Kim was merely using the summit with Trump to buy time as he rebuilt his program, and sure enough, here we are.
The U.S. intel community has determined that North Korea is now rebuilding its nuclear program at multiple secret sites, according to a new report from NBC News. Moreover, it’s been going on for months, meaning that Kim was building up his nuclear program even as Trump was announcing that Kim had agreed to give up his nuclear program.
Of course Donald Trump has falsely attacked the U.S. intel community so many times since taking office, he’s likely to dismiss this latest report as well – particularly since it exposes his North Korea summit for the sham that it was. Trump was desperate for a victory, even a phony one. But now that U.S. intel is providing this information about Kim Jong Un’s nuclear buildup to the media, what will Trump do? Kim played him for a fool, and now everyone knows it.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report