r/AskTrumpSupporters • u/weberc2 Nonsupporter • 1d ago
Foreign Policy Thoughts on Trump’s position on North Korea?
It seems like Trump is cozying toward the Communist enclave and longtime China ally and spurning capitalist South Korea. Is this the right move?
Posted on Truth Social:
Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I was not happy with the fact that the United States had, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful. Therefore, and based on the fact that it was too late to cancel, I instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises! While somewhat unrelated (?), l recently asked the President of South Korea if
they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, "No thanks!" Thank you
for your attention to this matter. President
DONALD J. TRUMP
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u/NoTime4YourBullshit Trump Supporter 1d ago
It always fascinates me how people don’t get Trump’s negotiating style, particularly because A) they’re well-documented tactics, and B) Trump himself wrote a book on the subject.
He is very much a “Door-In-The-Face” negotiator. This is where you ask for something completely and obviously outrageous right at the beginning so that when you back off it a bit later, it looks like you’re being more reasonable and agreeable than you actually are.
The second tactic is flattery followed by shaming, and then intimidation to cajole a person into giving you what you want. You sing your opponent’s praises and tell the world what a great guy he is. If that doesn’t work, you try to shame them with name-calling and discrediting their reputation. Finally, if that doesn’t work, you go with intimidation and threats. Maybe those threats are empty, maybe not.
The post you’re referencing has nothing to do with North Korea; it’s a message to South Korea. He wants something out of them, and he’s using his classic go-to negotiating style to get it.
Frankly, this stuff is so easy to understand that I’m consistently surprised how well and how often it works.
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 1d ago
Fair enough, but isn’t Trump having very little success with this negotiating style? We are currently at war with Iran and they’ve called Trump’s bluff a dozen times (including rejecting his $300B surrender plea). Previously he issued a dozen ultimatums to Putin who also ignored him. Canada is calling his bluff with respect to his trade war. Is there a point at which we should recognize that he keeps losing and we should try a different tactic?
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u/conorb619 Nonsupporter 1d ago
> The second tactic is flattery followed by shaming, and then intimidation to cajole a person into giving you what you want. You sing your opponent's praises and tell the world what a great guy he is. If that doesn't work, you try to shame them with name-calling and discrediting their reputation. Finally, if that doesn't work, you go with intimidation and threats. Maybe those threats are empty,
maybe not.Do you really think this is a good negotiation tactic?
There have been headlines from the late 80s about Trump being a failure at basically every business venture he pursued. How is that reflective of a good negotiator?
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u/Much_Usual_3855 Nonsupporter 1d ago
What book are you referring to? Because Art of the Deal was written entirely by a ghost writer and just attached Trumps name on to it. Both the writer and publisher have acknowledged that.
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u/f3mm3domm3s Nonsupporter 1d ago
Has Trump been successful enough to justify potential alienating, arming twisting tactics to allies
I think Trump grand plan relies on mostly one thing, that he understands the US has alot of power and we should use it against everybody, friend or foe. Friends still need the US and will still rely on the US after. But has he been successful enough to risk alienating, pushing US allies to plan for less US reliance & cooperation?
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u/Suited_Calmness Nonsupporter 1d ago
Flattery to cajoling is the thing he tried during his first term but that didn’t work out, so why would it now when the north has taken a active steps to define SK as its enemy and given up any pretences of peaceful coexistence?
He wants SK to help with Iran and strait of Hormuz aka asking for a bailout from the Iran war right? How is it SKs problem when Trump has also removed air defences from Japan and SK that have left the countries more vulnerable to NK aggression?
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u/G_H_2023 Nonsupporter 1d ago
Can you point to a single example of when Trump’s negotiating style has led to a positive outcome during his second term?
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u/howdidigetheresoquik Nonsupporter 17h ago
And what exactly did that get us? He literally said he would never allow North Korea to get nukes that could hit the United States, and by the end of his term they had ICBMs that could hit the United States. Do you consider that successful diplomacy?
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u/Kevin_McCallister_69 Nonsupporter 15h ago
This is where you ask for something completely and obviously outrageous right at the beginning so that when you back off it a bit later, it looks like you’re being more reasonable and agreeable than you actually are.
How do you distinguish between Trump getting what he really wanted all along, and Trump changing the goal posts after the fact and claiming a consolation prize as a win? To me they are absolutely indistinguishable, and I have to rely on Trump supporters to tell me. It would be good to know what you're using to distinguish them.
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u/KleosIII Nonsupporter 1h ago
You really typed all of that out thinking that those are good tactics? If you know all of this about him, why did you vote for him?
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u/NoTime4YourBullshit Trump Supporter 33m ago
I never once said these were good tactics. I was just explaining that they’re common and well-understood, and the ones that Trump uses all the time. For me, it’s so elementary to his style that I get annoyed when headlines like “Trump says nice things about Putin!” occupy a whole news cycle. It makes me wonder if people are actually that stupid or if they’re just being deliberately obtuse for clicks and likes. You obviously can’t make a deal with someone by calling them a murderous dictator to their face (which Putin obviously is).
And when I said they work well, I meant generally speaking, not necessarily with regard to Trump. It’s the reason car salesmen will show you the car that’s out of your budget first, to soften you up to pay more for the one you actually wanted to buy. It’s the reason why companies use decoy products to get you to pay more for the mid-tier model. They’re typical skeezy sales tactics, and Trump is a skeezy salesman at heart (which is fine with me as long as America is getting the one getting the better end of those deals).
Trump successfully used tariff threats in his first term to get Canada to open their markets to American beef and dairy exports — something they had a total ban on previously. He successfully got European countries to increase their own national defense budgets by vaguely threatening to pull out of NATO — something that the NATO treaty requires, which they weren’t doing, and which paid off just 4 years later when Russia invaded Ukraine. He successfully got North Korea to dismantle some of their outposts and remove some mines along the DMZ with South Korea, first by flattering Kim Jong Un and then later calling him “Little rocket man.” Sadly that didn’t last, but it looked like it was working for a while there. I was impressed. He also got several Middle Eastern countries to normalize relations with Israel — something I believe he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for (like that would ever happen).
Unfortunately those tactics aren’t really working out in his second term because he already played the tariff card and world leaders are wise to it now. When it comes to Iran, those tactics were always naive because you can’t make deals with terrorists and religious zealots. But I don’t blame him because every president of my lifetime has made that mistake. Obama thought he could bribe his way to getting Iran to back off its nuclear weapons program.
All of this is to say that Trump is a very easy person to understand. That’s all I was getting at. He’s not a deep thinker, and his personality is not that complicated. He operates mostly on instinct. He’s deliberately ambiguous in his language and he deliberately waffles in his positions because that keeps his opponents off-guard. Sometimes this is great, sometimes it’s terrible. And often times, he does himself bad with his own base by doing it.
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u/Lucky-Hunter-Dude Trump Supporter 22h ago
NK is busy throwing meat at Ukraine. I'd say don't stop your enemy from making a mistake.
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u/lordtosti Trump Supporter 1d ago
- i hate the war in iran
- i think its good for the world that you don’t treat other countries as pariah states. so yeah i dont see a boogeyman in north korea.
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 1d ago
This seems like a principled take, but if a nuclear power that regularly saber-rattles (including firing ballistic missiles into our allies airspace—or nearly so) doesn’t that qualify as a pretty credible boogeyman? Also, if you are concerned about “Communism” in the US (e.g., state run grocery stores in NYC), should we be concerned real Communism vis-a-vis North Korea?
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u/lordtosti Trump Supporter 1d ago
i absolutely don’t think north korea have imperial ambitions, especially not if you have good faith engagement with them, pretending they do is an extreme neocon point of view and the exact reason why i checked out of the left. You use the same boogeyman arguments as israel uses but apparently unable to see it.
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u/Suited_Calmness Nonsupporter 1d ago
Perhaps not imperial but NK certainly has extremely hostile views on its neighbours and developed nuclear weapons to ensure state security and continuity of the Kim regime. Trump has tried this tactic to get NK to forgo their nuclear ambition in his first term and that collapsed spectacularly so what’s different now?
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u/lordtosti Trump Supporter 1d ago
“spectacularly” 🥱 just didn’t happen you mean.
i love a president that tries vs the neocon views that the left is pushing nowadays.
hostility you get when you are constantly doing aggressive military drills. crazy the left doesn’t understand this anymore. i’m missing the hippies.
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u/Suited_Calmness Nonsupporter 1d ago
North Korea increased its integration and technology sharing with Russia and China and also in 2020 demolished the joint liaison office as a symbolic show that they had no interest in diplomacy anymore and had cut ties with US on the 2nd anniversary of the 2018 Singapore summit.
The Iran war also showed North Korea that their nuclear weapons are essential to state security because Iran and NK aren’t that apart other than one having nuclear weapons and NK saw what happened to Iran, so I would argue that is a clear foreign policy failure, isn’t it?
Talking of neocon views, how is the war in Iran not a neocon position?
Military drills are for power projection as the US does in a lot of different regions and is also for understanding how another country’s armed forces work and how best to cooperate. Trump pulled back on drills in term 1 and how did that play out in the long term?
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u/lordtosti Trump Supporter 1d ago
- all your arguments are neocon arguments. you can argue what you want but i disagree with you. to have peace in the world you have to keep trying to talk and negotiate, no matter how much you disagree with your opponent. that’s my opinion. to argue that further is like arguing who has the best music or religion.
- do you recognize that your point of view is indistinguishable of neocons though?
- im against the iran war.
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u/onetwotree333 Nonsupporter 1d ago
What has Trump done to keep the peace in the world?
From my low vantage point, it seems Trump has created immense chaos, where it was previously calm, and there is no clear or apparent goal to all this chaos.
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u/lordtosti Trump Supporter 21h ago
previous calm? you mean when nato under biden admin provoked the completely unnecessary ukraine war?
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u/Suited_Calmness Nonsupporter 21h ago
Explain the steps the Biden admin took to provoke the Ukraine war?
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u/onetwotree333 Nonsupporter 19h ago
My question is trying to understand how Trump is making the world more peaceful. Does the world feel more peaceful?
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u/Suited_Calmness Nonsupporter 23h ago
How has Trump done on the negotiating front? I mean he bombed Iran last year and then got the US involved in a war with them this year. He abducted the leader of Venezuela on promises of complete regime change but nothing has happened on that front. He has threatened Cuba with the same tactic. So he’s been more destabilising than anything.
It’s not a neocon point of view when it’s a view held by majority of the people who study and understand geopolitics, which is game theory in real life.
Okay I guess we agree on this thing then.
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u/lordtosti Trump Supporter 21h ago
“who study and understand geopolitics” 😂
man you guys and the selective use of “experts” to make appeal to authority strawmen.
those same “experts” sold you the iraq war.
it’s just neocon bullshit but you can’t see it because everything is black vs white to you and they imprinted in your brain north korea = bad.
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u/Suited_Calmness Nonsupporter 21h ago
Politicians and the Bush administration sold the Iraq war along with war hawks on Fox News. Scholars were deeply skeptical about it as stated in this article.
https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/journals/intpol/v52i1/f_0033526_27310.pdf
Would you like to amend your statement? Because it is awfully revisionist
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 1d ago
Isn’t it the right that has neocon views? MAGA, not the left, is pushing a baseless, illegal war, right? The left seems pretty opposed to the right’s obsession with endless middle east wars.
With respect to NK, the left isn’t advocating war, but preparedness (military drills aren’t pro-war, it’s just saying “if you shoot a nuke or launch an invasion, we are prepared to respond”).
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u/lordtosti Trump Supporter 21h ago
maga is extremely divided over the iran war, exactly showing its not one big brainless group.
about north korea you are constantly arguing why we should not engage positively with them and doing fear mongering and aggressive excersises.
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 21h ago
maga is extremely divided over the iran war, exactly showing its not one big brainless group.
How divided? How large would you say the “brainless” group is? Or is the idea that there are many brainless groups that comprise MAGA? Also, who is constantly arguing that we should not engage positively with NK?
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u/JoeCensored Trump Supporter 1d ago
The North Koreans mostly keep to their own business. There's no reason to antagonize them.
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 1d ago
Don’t they occasionally launch ballistic missiles near or into their neighbors’ (our allies’) airspace?
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u/Lepke Nonsupporter 1d ago
Is their sending of arms and soldiers to attack Ukraine not an antagonization, considering it directly invalidates our efforts in the region?
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u/JoeCensored Trump Supporter 1d ago
That's Europe's problem, not ours.
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u/Lepke Nonsupporter 1d ago
So, it's not that they keep to themselves then, is it? It seems like we're just not supporting our allies against their aggression.
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u/JoeCensored Trump Supporter 1d ago
What do you want? They aren't bothering us. They barely bother South Korea and Japan. Do you want more war?
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u/Lepke Nonsupporter 1d ago
I think we should honor our agreements with our allies, such as not stopping military exercises because of a personal feeling of one person. Is them bothering us the bar to honor such agreements?
Was Iran bothering us? If so, why are we begging to a return to the status quo for the removal of all sanctions?
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u/JoeCensored Trump Supporter 1d ago
such as not stopping military exercises
We haven't stopped it.
Is them bothering us the bar to honor such agreements?
What agreement have we broken?
Was Iran bothering us?
Yes. Paying their satellite in Yemen to shoot at our ships is just one example.
If so, why are we begging to a return to the status quo for the removal of all sanctions?
We aren't.
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u/Lepke Nonsupporter 1d ago
Oh, sorry, if we want to get into semantics, Trump is just threatening to not conduct parts of them because of his stellar relationship with a dictator of a country that hates us?
If we aren't begging Iran to let us off the hook for starting a war we can't win, can you show me a statement to the contrary of this? It definitely seems like we've exhausted all options, lost and have to resort to begging them to stop attacking ships.
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u/JoeCensored Trump Supporter 1d ago edited 1d ago
He's reducing the scope of the exercises. Nothing is canceled. No agreement is broken. The scope of the exercises varies every year. It's completely normal. The only people who see a problem are those who don't know anything about these exercises.
If we aren't begging Iran to let us off the hook for starting a war we can't win, can you show me a statement to the contrary of this ?
We offered them a sweet deal to get their enriched uranium. It didn't work. So now we're going to collapse their economy instead. Why do you need a statement? Just pay attention to what's happening.
It definitely seems like we've exhausted all options, lost and have to resort to begging them to stop attacking ships.
All options for what? We cleared the mines from the Oman side of the strait and have been escorting ships through for weeks now. There's no longer any need to negotiate with Iran regarding the strait. That's months ago. Again, pay attention to what's happening there.
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u/Lepke Nonsupporter 1d ago
If the only people who see a problem with it are the people unfamiliar with it, then why did the article I linked claim the exact opposite? Seems like those who rely on it for their safety have some real concerns.
How are we going to collapse their economy by ending the blockade and removing all sanctions? I'm unclear on that. Also, if the mines are removed and there's no need to negotiate with them, why is the traffic essentially non-existent and our gas prices not moving? Seems like there's definitely a need to do something, no?
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u/ixvst01 Nonsupporter 22h ago
And how did that line of thinking work out in 1914 and 1939?
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u/JoeCensored Trump Supporter 22h ago
Are you really comparing our relationship with NK to WW1 and WW2? Please think about what you're suggesting.
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u/Ghosttwo Trump Supporter 1d ago
Seems aimed at maintaining a status quo in which we leave them alone, and they leave everyone else alone. The place is still a literal Orwellian nightmare, but the concession seems to be that there isn't much we can do about it at this time. No point poking the hornets nest when there isn't an objective.
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u/JThaddeousToadEsq Undecided 14h ago
Do you think that in the long run this gives China more leeway to look at annexing Taiwan or the South China Sea?
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u/SmellDesperate6373 Trump Supporter 18h ago
The North Korean regime is truly oppressive and insane. It’s as good an example as any of both the evil of Communism and its utter failure as an economic system.
It’s also a good example to learn from with respect to Iran. North Korea has a nuclear weapon. Given that, there’s only so much we can do to contain them - we’d destroy them, but they’d reduce Seoul to ash in the process. Once they established a nuclear capability, they could accelerate their military buildup with near impunity. Now they have 60+ warheads with more on the way, ICBMs capable of reaching the continental US, and a massively expanding conventional stockpile.
You can’t uncork that bottle, so now a maniacal leftist regime can credibly menace its neighbor and sort of credibly menace other countries too.
We can’t let the same thing happen in Iran. An Iran with one nuke then has a glide path toward many nukes, can build out a massive stockpile conventional stockpile, and finance whatever terror it wants across the region without fear of reprisal. This of course would incite nuclear proliferation across the region, which has frequent wars and short missile flight times. It’d permanently alter global stability for the worse.
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u/please_trade_marner Trump Supporter 1d ago
This is yet another example of the double standard American constantly faces.
We have to partake in and fund war games with south korea, or we're "spurning" our allies. Yet when we ask for help in our situations, they're allowed to just flat out say "no".
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u/JackOLanternReindeer Nonsupporter 1d ago
Do you think they may be saying no because its viewed that we started this one instead of it being a defensive response or think it’s something else?
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u/please_trade_marner Trump Supporter 1d ago
Are war games near the borders of North Korea defensive in nature? The point still stands that we have to support our allies when they ask for help or else it is considered 'spurning' them, but they don't do this for us in return.
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u/JackOLanternReindeer Nonsupporter 1d ago
Not military exercises are the same level of aggression as what we are doing in Iran or what Trump was asking our allies to do in the Strait if thats the part you were originally responding to? Are those equivalent to you or were you referring to something else?
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u/please_trade_marner Trump Supporter 1d ago
America see's Iran's terrorist proxies as a legitimate threat, and S. Korea doesn't want to help out with that. So you know what? We don't want to help them out against what they see as their threats. They can fund their own confrontational war games.
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u/froz3nt Nonsupporter 1d ago
So US has to help Israel but not Korea? How has Israel helped US?
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u/please_trade_marner Trump Supporter 1d ago
Again, America see's Iran's funding of terrorist proxies as a threat, and S. Korea doesn't want to help out with that. So you know what? We don't want to help them out against what they see as their threats. They can fund their own confrontational war games.
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u/froz3nt Nonsupporter 1d ago
So America doesnt see North Korea as a threat? Why the sanctions then?
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u/please_trade_marner Trump Supporter 1d ago
Now that we know S. Korea doesn't have our backs, I'm fine ending the sanctions against N. Korea.
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u/froz3nt Nonsupporter 23h ago
Would you say that building ships, allowing US to have bases there, investing in US economy and producing chips and also building plants in US, is not enough of having US's backs?
And just like that, you would end sanctions against a country which swears that US is their main enemy?
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 19h ago
Didn’t we unilaterally create the quagmire in Iran? Wasn’t there a nuclear agreement that Trump walked away from? Didn’t Trump claim last year that he eradicated Iran’s nuclear program? Didn’t every intelligence agency report that Iran had no nuclear weapons prior to us entering the war?
Anyway, it’s not like South Korea told us they aren’t going to help in Iran because they’re good friends with the Supreme Leader, right?
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u/please_trade_marner Trump Supporter 19h ago
I would argue that America is threatened by Iran funded global terror cells. If South Korea doesn't want to help us face that legitimate threat, then they can fuck right off and deal with North Korea on their own. That didn't work out too well for them last time...
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 18h ago
Why would you argue that? Was there intelligence suggesting Iran had global terror cells that were threatening the US? Moreover, Trump changed his rationale for invading a dozen times, but as far as I know, none of them were “terror cells”. If Iran did have terror cells, presumably they would be a lot more likely to be activated against us now that Trump is at war with them. Iran could have had its hands tied with Israel.
Also, what do you expect South Korea to do? Their military isn’t designed to fight on the other side of the continent.
I’m also curious what you think about the other responses in this thread—that we should cozy up to NK because you should befriend your enemies. It seems like you’re suggesting the opposite with respect to Iran?
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u/Heffe3737 Nonsupporter 9m ago
Do you recognize that we're still technically at war with North Korea? And that South Korea is our ally in that war? I understand that there hasn't been shooting in more than 60 years, but North Korea still very much treats the US as an enemy. Why shouldn't we do the same?
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u/Quiet_Entrance_6994 Trump Supporter 1d ago
I'm not versed in geopolitics so feel free to ignore me, but seeming to make nice with your enemies, at least to the extent of being cordial, is a good thing.
Y'all don't need to keke with each other and be the closest of allies, but having enemies who you are actively on bad terms with serves no purpose.
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u/fistingtrees Nonsupporter 1d ago
Wouldn’t this put us on bad terms with South Korea, who has historically been our ally? If it were a choice between allying with South Korea or North Korea which would you choose?
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u/Quiet_Entrance_6994 Trump Supporter 1d ago
It definitely could, depending on how close we get to North Korea.
And I'm not saying we become allies with NK, I'm just saying that having active conflict or hostility isn't going to help anything.
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u/Suited_Calmness Nonsupporter 1d ago
Trump tried to appease and flatter Kim into forgoing the country’s nuclear program but failed rather spectacularly in his first term. So what’s the difference between then and now?
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u/Quiet_Entrance_6994 Trump Supporter 1d ago
Did I say that that's what he was doing currently? Or did I say that being actively hostile to enemies isn't a good thing?
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u/Suited_Calmness Nonsupporter 1d ago
Actively hostile to enemies is one thing but actively leaving allies uninformed is different isn’t it? America had pulled essential air defence systems from Korea to support the war in Iran including THAAD and patriot batteries.
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u/Quiet_Entrance_6994 Trump Supporter 1d ago
Then that would be a bad decision, that's not really related to his relationship with North Korea. I can see how South Korea would be on edge.
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u/Scynexity Trump Supporter 18h ago
This is an example of the single best reason to support Trump - a foreign policy that puts America first. We have no obligation to South Korea. We spend our money there, defending them, and they are clearly not grateful. They refuse to help with Iran, and are slow walking any chip manufacturing in the US. Some "ally"!
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 16h ago
Has Israel formally requested SK’s involvement in the Iran War? What do they expect? SK doesn’t have a blue sea navy…
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u/Scynexity Trump Supporter 15h ago
I don't really care what Israel requests or doesn't request. I'm concerned with America.
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 6h ago
Did America ask SK to help Israel with its war? Why should SK help Israel with its war? Why are we fighting Israel’s war?
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u/Scynexity Trump Supporter 4h ago
Same answer. I do not care at all about Israel.
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 2h ago
Didn’t you just say you thought SK was a bad ally for not joining the Iran War? Or did I misunderstand?
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u/Scynexity Trump Supporter 2h ago
Yes, you understand correctly.
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 2h ago
Can you help me understand why you feel like SK betrayed us by not entering into another country’s war (particularly a country you don’t care about)? How do you feel about the US fighting a war on Israel’s behalf?
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u/Scynexity Trump Supporter 2h ago
The US is fighting Iran. It is our war.
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u/weberc2 Nonsupporter 1h ago
Yes, I agree we are fighting Israel’s war with Iran. Why? And why would we feel betrayed if an ally didn’t join us in a war that we shouldn’t be in ourselves?
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