The topic of denuclearization of North Korea has been one of the important goals of the United States for the last two decades and has appeared in every subsequent security strategy. Now, in the latest document announced by the US on Friday, it is no longer there. According to Reuters, this may be the basis for resuming diplomatic talks between Donald Trump and the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. The two leaders last met in person in 2019.
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Why was North Korea left out of the new US strategy?
What were the previous references to North Korea in US strategies?
What might the lack of denuclearization of North Korea in the new document mean?
When did Trump's last meetings with Kim Jong Un take place?
No North Korea in US strategy. “Diplomatic breakthrough”
The White House has released the long-awaited US national security strategy. On the one hand, it is a record of the most important goals of the US administration for the term of office that has lasted almost a year, and on the other, it is a signal of how the United States perceives its global position. His main point is to maintain the United States as the most powerful and innovative country in the world, especially in the Western Hemisphere.
The document does not make any reference to the denuclearization of North Korea, i.e. an attempt to eliminate a serious threat. In Trump's previous security plan released during his first term in 2017, North Korea was mentioned as many as 16 times as a threat to “our homeland” and a rogue state that could “use nuclear weapons against the United States.”
As Reuters points out, this unexpected “disappearance” of an important point “fuels speculation that Washington may seek to increase the chances of a diplomatic breakthrough with Pyongyang in 2026.” As Hong Min from the Korea Institute for National Unification told the agency, “this is to some extent a conscious intention.”
Previously, the leaders of both countries met in 2018 and 2019. Donald Trump had already expressed his readiness for another meeting with the leader of North Korea a few months earlier, suggesting that he “gets along very well” with him.
In turn, Kim Jong Un then made it clear that he and Trump could only meet as equal leaders of nuclear states. “If the United States, freeing itself from the absurd drive to denuclearize others and recognizing the reality, wants true, peaceful coexistence with us, there is no reason for us not to face it,” he said.
