There's some actual news this afternoon. The President told Secretary of State Pompeo to delay his trip to North Korea because there is too little progress in the denuclearization discussions as of now. Trump blamed some of the slow down on China which he says is hoping to affect US/China trade talks by not helping much on the NK deal. Trump did, however, send his regards to Chairman Kim of the NK's.
I can't say any of this is surprising. There has been progress with North Korea. We got our hostages back. The NK's returned the remains of many Korean war dead. North Korea blew up its nuclear test site. North Korea dismantled one of its missile production/test facilities. For its part, the USA has cancelled an upcoming joint military exercise with the South Koreans although it could quickly reinstate those exercises if things were to change. Nothing else has been altered; the sanctions remain in effect.
The real question now is whether or not China will respond to this event. Trump is basically telling the Chinese that they will not get a better trade deal by holding the North Korean deal hostage. It's a rather straight confrontation of Chinese leader Xi. We will have to see whether the recent difficulties with the Chinese economy will pressure Xi to reach a deal with the USA or if those difficulties will strengthen Xi's resolve not to make any deal at all.
For what it is worth, I bet China blinks soon.
I can't say any of this is surprising. There has been progress with North Korea. We got our hostages back. The NK's returned the remains of many Korean war dead. North Korea blew up its nuclear test site. North Korea dismantled one of its missile production/test facilities. For its part, the USA has cancelled an upcoming joint military exercise with the South Koreans although it could quickly reinstate those exercises if things were to change. Nothing else has been altered; the sanctions remain in effect.
The real question now is whether or not China will respond to this event. Trump is basically telling the Chinese that they will not get a better trade deal by holding the North Korean deal hostage. It's a rather straight confrontation of Chinese leader Xi. We will have to see whether the recent difficulties with the Chinese economy will pressure Xi to reach a deal with the USA or if those difficulties will strengthen Xi's resolve not to make any deal at all.
For what it is worth, I bet China blinks soon.
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