In 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama said he would be ready to meet with the leaders of North Korea or Iran without preconditions, and the media largely gave him a pass or even defended him when Democratic primary rivals including Hillary Clinton criticized the one-term senator.
On Monday, President Trump said he would meet with North Korea’s leader “under the right circumstances,” prompting a widespread tone of alarm in the press.
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely. I would be honored to do it,” Mr. Trump said of Kim Jong-un in an Oval Office interview Monday with Bloomberg News.
He said he would meet with Mr. Kim only “under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”
The U.S. has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, and the administration has said the U.S. would negotiate with Pyongyang only if shows seriousness about abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer was peppered with questions about what conditions Mr. Trump would require for a meeting and suggested that the soaring tensions on the Korean Peninsula made a quick meeting unlikely.
“We’ve got to see their provocative behavior ratcheted down immediately,” Mr. Spicer said. “Clearly, the conditions are not there right now.”
Mr. Trump’s comments were revealed as CIA Director Mike Pompeo was making a surprise visit to South Korea to meet with top military and intelligence officials days after North Korea carried out another round of ballistic missile tests.
Mr. Pompeo arrived in Seoul over the weekend to meet with Lee Byung-ho, head of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, and other top government officials, as well as U.S. Forces-Korea chief Gen. Vincent Brooks, Yonhap News Agency reported. He is the fourth senior administration official from Mr. Trump’s national security team to visit the Korean Peninsula in recent weeks, following Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Vice President Mike Pence.
On Saturday, U.S. warships attached to the USS Carl Vinson strike group began bilateral naval drills with the South Korean navy, hours after Pyongyang’s latest ballistic missile test. The drills were part of ongoing efforts geared toward “deterring North Korea’s provocations and displaying the firm alliance between the United States and South Korea,” according to a statement from Seoul.
A face-to-face meeting between a U.S. president and the leader of North Korea would be unprecedented. Mr. Kim has not met with any foreign leader since taking charge in Pyongyang after the death of his father in 2011.
Mr. Trump’s comment received extra scrutiny in part because it came at a moment of heightened tensions, while the president is working with China to exert more pressure on North Korea. Mr. Trump has also raised eyebrows with his White House invitations to authoritarian leaders such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.
Media reaction was more muted 10 years ago when Mr. Obama was asked in a debate whether he would meet “without precondition” during the first year of your administration with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.
“The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous,” Mr. Obama scoffed.
The criticism of Mr. Obama at the time came mainly from his political rivals. Mrs. Clinton called his suggestion “irresponsible and frankly naive.”
Republican presidential nominee John McCain said it showed the Democrat to be reckless and naive.
Mr. Trump acknowledged in the Bloomberg interview that his approach to the North Korea question was unconventional.
“Most political people would never say that,” the president said. “But I’m telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news.”
⦁ Carlo Munoz contributed to this report.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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