Direct diplomacy between North and South Korea has picked up in recent weeks, culminating on Friday in a summit meeting between North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in. The Panmunjom Declaration, a joint statement detailing goals and objectives for ongoing negotiations, included language about “denuclearization” as well as a commitment to work toward formally ending the Korean War. Images of both leaders holding hands and stepping over the border were moving.
To top it all off, on Sunday, the South Korean government said that Kim Jong-un told President Moon Jae-in “that he would abandon his nuclear weapons if the United States agreed to formally end the Korean War and promise not to invade his country.” This is now the context heading into the planned meeting between Trump and Kim in May or June.
What is driving this apparently historic diplomatic engagement? Why does Kim Jong-un suddenly seem so willing to compromise after years of obstinacy? If you listen to the White House and its supporters, all the credit is owed to Trump. At a rally in Michigan on Saturday, President Trump noted that some people were questioning what his policy of “maximum pressure” had to do with this outbreak of diplomacy. “I’ll tell you what,” Trump boasted to the crowd, “like, how about everything?”
Vice President Mike Pence concurs, saying in a statement, “The fact that North Korea has come to the table without the United States making any concessions speaks to the strength of President Trump’s leadership and is a clear sign that the intense pressure of sanctions is working.” National Security Adviser John Bolton, too, believes that “the maximum pressure campaign that the Trump administration has put on North Korea, along with the political and military pressure, has brought us to this point.”
Even the president’s antagonists on the Democratic side are giving him credit. “I think it’s more than fair,” Rep. Adam Schiff told ABC News, “to say that the combination of the president’s unpredictability and indeed, his bellicosity had something to do with the North Koreans deciding to come to the table.”