swerte gaming Trump-Kim, Part II, Could Shake Up the World

When Donald Trump takes office, he will face an array of authoritarian adversaries — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — that are coalescing into a formidable axis intent on challenging U.S. power. Together, they represent America’s greatest foreign policy threat, and the Trump administration should act quickly to exploit potential weak links in this coalition before it hardens into a unified bloc.

North Korea is that weak link. Its leader, Kim Jong-un, is a cynical and deeply transactional despot whose insecurities, ambitions and questionable commitment to China and Russia provide America’s best opening. Mr. Trump’s history with Mr. Kim during his first term positions him better than any previous president to make a deal with North Korea that is advantageous for America.

Mr. Trump should capitalize on this by seeking a lasting peace deal and formal diplomatic relations with North Korea, an outcome that would have important benefits for the United States.

It would finally bring peace to the Korean Peninsula, one of the most militarized places on the planet. That would allow the United States to eventually reduce its substantial military commitments on the peninsula and concentrate on its single biggest geopolitical worry: China. Defusing the North Korean threat would likewise allow Washington’s allies Japan and South Korea to refocus on China, and the United States could gain new leverage to curb North Korea’s rogue-state behavior. At the very least, it would deliver an unexpected blow to the anti-U.S. coalition.

There are good reasons to believe Mr. Kim might play ball. Despite North Korea’s traditional alliance with China and its deepening relationship with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Mr. Kim knows that these two patrons have a history of being unreliable. They have meddled in his country’s internal affairs in the past, sacrificing its needs and interests when it served their purposes. Mr. Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s first leader, frustrated Beijing and Moscow, causing Mao Zedong in 1956 to complain to the Russians that the elder Mr. Kim was “assuming airs.” He tried to play Beijing and Moscow off each other, and the militant official ideology he introduced — “juche,” or self-reliance — was adopted partly to avoid becoming a Chinese or Russian vassal state.

One of the primary goals of the elder Mr. Kim was to prevent his patrons from extending diplomatic recognition to his archrival, South Korea. But both Moscow and Beijing did precisely that in the early 1990s, enticed by the trade prospects. The Kim dynasty’s realization that it had no firm allies was, in fact, a key reason behind its decision to pursue nuclear weapons.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Ms. Harris may give remarks about border issues during the visit, according to the peopleswerte gaming, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a trip that has not yet been made public. The people said final details about exactly where Ms. Harris would visit or what else she might do on the trip have not been decided. The Harris campaign did not immediately provide a comment.