he handed over his presidency to the establishment wing of the republican party, which proceeded to attack obamacare, roll back regulations and pass a huge tax cuts for companies and wealthy americans. but now, he is moving hard on tariffs and also immigration. as is often the case, trump may be more in line with his party s base than most of its leaders. recent poll finds that voters overwhelmingly oppose trump s tariffs as does the republican establishment, but most republican voters support them. in fact, over the last decade, republican support for free trade has dropped a staggering 20 points. the new republican party is now coming into view. it is a party skeptical about free markets, from adam smith to milton friedman they have recognized free trade is at the heart of what makes capitalism work and they pointed tariffs
himself of south korea is not in any way suggesting that trump should just accept. be cautious, first engage at a lower level and trump is like no, i want to do it, let s announce it now. the south koreans end up making the announcement in the driveway in front of the white house. on every level, this is unprecedented, and yet on every level, this is par for the course and what we should expect with president trump. normally presumably you would have had the president say, let s think about it. sure. let s convene a national security council meeting. even president moon jae-in, the south korean president all for engagement and negotiation, offered to meet with kim jong-un he said if the continues are right, let me think about this. i ll get back to you. president trump normal situation should have done convene a meeting and talk about pros and cons of having such a summit meeting with kim jong-un, and then coordinate the policy and
engaging with kim jong-un right now. when you re prepared, that s fine, but it s a little bit too premature. they re trying to walk back. but north korea, what preconditions? they already said denuclearization is now on the table. so what actions do they need to take? i think if mr. trump really wants to see him, he will. i think in terms of the venue, dmz is fine. definitely, i think mr. trump should not go to north korea, because it s going to really give north koreans are going to spin this into legitimacy, into u.s. president coming to north korea, to kowtow to their dear leader. so they should at least do it at the dmz or a place that s a neutral country like switzerland, sweden, or singapore. stanley, a quick thought on you from china. is china happy with the situation? they ve, after all, wanted a diffusion of tension. this is sort of what the chinese want. yes, i think they re happy, but conflicted. of course, anything that diffuses the situation makes
trying this? the trump argument, i suppose, would be, look we ve tried all that kind of thing. why not do something out of the box? there s nothing wrong with trying this. i think extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. and in my view, president trump had no choice. first, this had been clearly orchestrated by president moon, whoed a invested enormous political capital and prestige, sending his national security adviser to personally brief the president, carrying the invitation. it would have been a massive insult to president moon had he nod accept not accepted. it would have been a massive insult to kim jong-un. furthermore, i think the president, because of the way he runs the white house, does not have the luxury that president clinton had, where he could send secretary albright, ambassador sherman, and a very large team. we had four assistant secretaries to pave the way for a trip. a secretary tillerson really going to be able to represent the u.s. on north korea pol
military action less likely is very positive for them if it can lead to a negotiating process, even better. at the same time, they ve got to be very concerned about the possibilities of a trade war, not just the steps taken, but the steps that might be taken, and that could influence their willingness to be helpful. and third, there s probably a bit of resentment that north korea met with the u.s. president before the meeting with the chinese president. that s absolutely extraordinary. and the trade war part. what s extraordinary is the south koreans are under the gun with trump s tariffs, even at the time when we re trying to build a close alliance with them. that s right, the fact that this invitation was formally accepted by trump at the same time that trump is saying i m going to put tariffs on steel and aluminum against all these countries around the world and south korea happens to be quite an important exporter to the united states, but he backed away from that significantly