Who would have thought that Kim Jong-Un and Donald Trump would ever have anything in common? Till a few months back, North Korea watchers would have agreed — not much. After all, the possibilities of a dictator, the head of perhaps the most diplomatically isolated country, having anything in common with a White House presidential hopeful, seem improbable. And so however unlikely it may have once seemed that the two could have ever shared the same strain of thought, much less ever coming to an agreement on anything, recent comments from both Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un prove otherwise.
For Trump, who until a few weeks back had managed to anger North Korea, South Korea, Japan and China – which is no easy feat – to now praise Kim Jong-Un is notable. And Kim for his part, apparently approves of and endorses Trump for President. North Korean state media outlet, DPRK Today, recently published an article by one Han Yong Mook, who identified himself as a Chinese North Korean scholar, referring to Trump’s suggestion of wanting to hold direct talks with Kim Jong-un, heaped praise upon the Republican nominee for being a “wise politician” and “far-sighted candidate” who would help the cause of reunification in the Korean peninsula. Though it would be presumptuous to assume that the article in DPRK Today represents the opinions of Kim Jong-un, it can certainly be considered an indication of the nature of the conversations among Pyongyang’s elite surrounding the U.S. presidential elections.
North Korea’s preference for Trump has to do with his views on foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific as mentioned by him in a interview with The New York Times in March 2016. Under the constant threat of attacks from North Korea following the Korean War, in 1954 South Korea signed a mutual defense treaty with the United States. The treaty benefits both countries — it guaranteed that the U.S. provided national security for South Korea and that South Korea in turn became a military base for U.S. forces to protect American interests against Russia and China. So while Trump thinks that withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea would cut costs of maintaining the army, for Pyongyang it would mean having to deal with South Korea without outside interference, an outcome that would ‘benefit’ both.
Image: Heng/The New York Times
In May, in an interview with Reuters, Trump said that he would be willing to talk to Kim Jong-un and that he would “absolutely” try to “talk some sense” into him. Although the comments were initially rubbished as the “dramatics of a popular actor” by Hyon Hak Bong, Pyongyang’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, the article in DPRK Today perhaps hints at a shift in opinion in Pyongyang. Considering these two instances, perhaps for the first time in this incredibly skewed way, the U.S. and North Korea might finally have something in common- one possible autocrat, the other an established dictator, who both want the same things, for two countries that don’t have formal diplomatic relations.
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