Ex-advisor has harsh words for Trump for helping America's biggest enemy

President Donald Trump is appeasing America’s biggest Communist enemy, argued the Republican’s former national security adviser. In so doing, he is putting America’s security and that of its closest allies in serious jeopardy.

“President Trump put North Korea and its rogue nuclear-weapons program back in the spotlight on Sunday,” wrote The Wall Street Journal's John Bolton on Wednesday. “The president ordered the Defense Department ‘to substantially reduce’ this week’s annual U.S.-South Korean military field exercises to defend against a potential attack by the North. He made the same unilateral concession in his first term, a mistake that is even worse now.”

Bolton — a well-known hawk who previously served as President George W. Bush’s UN ambassador, and who Trump prosecuted and ultimately compelled to plead guilty to unlawful transmission and ten counts of unlawful retention of national defense information — went on to blast his former boss.

“At the 2018 Singapore summit to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons program, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un criticized the annual defense maneuvers,” Bolton explained. “As I wrote later, Mr. Trump agreed ‘that the exercises were provocative and a waste of time and money.’ He decided that ‘there would be no exercises as long as the two sides were negotiating in good faith.’ Essentially repeating these points in his Sunday social-media post, Mr. Trump wrote that the exercises were ‘costly’ and ‘totally inappropriate and hostile’ to North Korea, which has been ‘unthreatening and respectful’ during his presidency.”

He continued, “All this is false. What the North finds hostile is the South’s existence, along with its political and economic success compared with the wretched dictatorship north of the demilitarized zone. The U.S.-South Korean military maneuvers are entirely defensive, crucial to the safety and readiness of the roughly 28,000 service members in U.S. Forces Korea and their South Korean counterparts. This is critical today given the combat experience the North’s troops have gained fighting alongside Russia in Ukraine—experience the South hasn’t had since Vietnam.”

Overall, Bolton depicted Trump’s desire to curry favor with North Korea’s communist dictator as poor leadership. Despite Trump depicting a summit with North Korea in his first term as a major foreign policy achievement, the nation continues to aggressively posture toward South Korea and create nuclear weapons. In addition to threatening one of America’s closest Asian allies, Trump’s actions toward North Korea also imperil its border strategic interests in that hemisphere, Bolton asserted.

“America’s Asia-Pacific allies, including South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, already harbored doubts about the president’s reliability,” Bolton claimed. “Although their initial comments have been muted, deep concerns are clear. Relations with Seoul were already strained, and the South’s leftist president is engaging in a naive diplomatic effort to end the Korean War formally and resolve Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Mr. Trump’s criticism of Seoul’s reluctance to take a role in the Gulf crisis, plus continuing disputes about tariffs and Seoul’s investment commitments, will only complicate the relationship further.”

He concluded, “We should hope that something else diverts White House attention from North Korea. If not, Mr. Trump’s next social-media post could announce that he is flying to Pyongyang to resume his bromance with the world’s only hereditary communist dictator.”

Trump, who earlier in August seemed to accidentally disclose sensitive information about North Korea’s nuclear arsenal (namely, that it has “57 very powerful nuclear weapons” which he admitted under previous agreements “they should have never” been allowed to possess), by his own admission “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un during his first term. Journalist Bob Woodward discovered that the North Korean despot repeatedly sent flattering letters to the president, including referring to him as “Your Excellency.”

“When I was in North Korea [President] Kim Jong-il, the father of the current president there, said that he didn’t have any problems with us having our troops in South Korea,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told this journalist for Salon in 2019.

She continued, “I do think that what is worrisome to me is, in an effort to be flattered by Kim Jong-un, that he gives away something that might have a longer term effect for the next administration.”