jong-un is too smart and has too much to lose if he acts in a hostile way. he does not want to void his special relationship with the president of the united states or interfere with the u.s. presidential election in november. gordon chang is the author of nuclear showdown, north korea takes on the world. gordon, north korea has been signaling to the u.s. for weeks that something bad will happen if there s not progress made on the nuclear deal by year s end. i think the u.s. should say to the north koreans, well, if you re cancelling the denuclearization talks, that s fine. we ll go back to strict sanctions enforcement. for more than a year and a half we have not been robust in the way we ve been enforcing u.s. and u.n. roles. north korea called this a very important test. we know they ve warned the u.s. about an unwelcome christmas gift. do you believe this is paving the way for them to launch a
to the u.s. at this point in time. the block would be strict sanctions enforcement. also on the chinese, the russians, and to a lesser extent on the south koreans. arthel: we keep hearing this. does it really work? it will if the u.s. exercises political will. president trump gave a signal he was going to do that in june of 2017 when he cut off a small chinese bank from the global system. but the banks have been handling kim jong-un s cash and we haven t gone after them. we haven t even fined them. of course, the chinese will continue to support the north koreans because there is anybody who season tough not to do so. kim jong-un is thinking he s got almost everything he wants.
through the middle of may of 2018. do you believe that kim jong un is getting the better of trump in this deal? he s continuing to have these negotiations and continuing to interface with the president, with the united states but at the same time continuing with these tests and all of these other different things like that. do you think he s getting the better of the president? since the middle of may of 2018, we ve been making all of the concessions and kim has been making virtually none. this is a stark contrast where before the north koreans were making all the concessions and we weren t making any. i think we immediate to go back to a more resolute policy on sanctions enforcement and make sure the north koreans realize they have no choice but to give up their nukes. we haven t been as vigorous as we should have been this past year. we re prying to the may 18
with regard to sanctions enforcement. leland: i m not saying it s not worth being proud of them. when you think of blue water navy second project for us around the world, there is nothing like the u.s. navy. the fact of the u.s. navy did nothing after shooting down the drown that the british are now picking this metal up, it does make you wonder who is more hawkish in what they say versus who is more hawkish and what they are willing to do. i think your point of the united states navy with regard to power projection, quite right. at the same time, we do operate in a coalition. we are also part of nato. if you look at the president s decision, the national security council, with regard to what we should do, what our options were against the drone shootdown, i think the united states did act in another way with regard to our cyber capability. that s another totally different issue. but i think looking at the like-minded responsibilities of the royal navy, the maritime trade, looking
this comes at a very high cost. this gives kim jong-un a lot of legitimacy. this is gold for him politically at home and in the world. and secondly, this is going to weaken sanctions enforcement against north korea because if you are another country you re going to say to yourself, my companies don t need to pay a price, they are now getting along, you are going to step back a little bit. we are paying a price for this. former acting cia director under president obama on the historic moment earlier this morning. president trump becoming the first sitting u.s. president to step foot into north korea after greeting kim jong-un in the demilitarized zone. the president announcing both sides agreeing to resume denuclearization talks. let s bring in msnbc contributor