with some of them. third, don t be provoked. the worst outcome is if they start trading insults and it becomes a race to the bottom. fourth, stick with your plan. don t try to solve everything. because that can be dangerous. remember, reagan at retgorbache. understand that you re not here to work out the details to come up with common definitions. try to get a plan for a negotiating process. sue mi terry, it s still quite possible this won t happen. trump s own national security council seems to be walking back the possibility by putting on these conditions saying, we re only going to do the summit if there s denuclearization. so i m getting already a sense that nsc is trying to walk back this, because before may is right around the corner. and i think, because they understand the danger and the risk that s going to be involved with are very premature,
you take off your uniform. you re not really called general mattis anymore. you re secretary mattis. you are now serving as a civilian leader in the democratic system. and they contrasted that with general kelly, who has been very political in his support for donald trump, made political statements of his own, and, of course, admiral mullen said in his view, in admiral mullen s view, politicized the death of his own son by saying, well, president obama didn t call me when my son got killed. is that a distinction to bear in mind between mattis and kelly? the distinction is not between mattis and kelly but the role of the secretary of defense and the role of the chief of staff. the secretary of defense has to deliver national security policy, has to go and argue for a budget and all of them have to go and support the president s budget, presuming they ve negotiated it to a satisfactory level. but the chief of staff job sin her he notally political.
meet with him. it normalizes the country, but i have other concerns. trump might not see this as just a beginning of the negotiation. what if he concludes, what if he agrees to something like you know, north koreans say if their regime security is guaranteed they might give up nuclear weapons. they want to break up the u.s./south korea alliance, they want to kick off the u.s. forces off the korean peninsula. i don t have confidence mr. trump is going to start something. what if he decides hey, this might work or at the other end i think victor chan was absolutely right when he said you have a premature negotiation. if it falls through, there is no recourse. you already met with kim jong-un. now you re going to say okay we ve used that engagement negotiation card and now we have no recourse except to take kinetic action on north korea. you said you knew this was going to happen in the sense that trump was going to want to meet with kim jong-un. why? because no one else has done it.
that produces inefficiency and corruption. but republicans are now apparently comfortable with government intervention, as long as it s for the right people. it is also now a party that has developed a total contempt for experts and expert analysis. consider that trump s tariffs are opposed by a remarkable array of scholars across the political spectrum, from the conservative heritage foundation, to the kato institute, to the center-left brookings institution, to the left-wing center for economic and policy research. the white house barely offers serious arguments about it, instead providing a bogus argument for the tariffs, even though china provides only a tiny portion of these goods to the united states. despite research showing that previous protectionist policies have failed, that the steel industry has lost more jobs due to efficiency in automation than to trade and that preserving one job in the steel/automobile industry through tariffs can cost consumers a whopping $1.5
the situation makes 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, that s probably a bit of resentment that north korea met with the u.s. president before 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 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 trump is saying i m going to put tariffs on steel and alum num 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 significa