Trump Agrees to End Joint US/SK Military Exercises -- forgets to tell SK or the US military

cornflake

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No, I'm not kidding.

During a rambling, bizarre press conference following the signing of an agreement he wouldn't explain (saying reporters could read it soon), Trump, who originally said he made no concessions, casually mentioned he'd agreed to stop joint military exercises with SK.

He apparently did not ask or even inform SK of this. Also forgot to mention it to the US military.



The US maintains around 30,000 troops in South Korea, as well as a base for Air Force fighter plane squadrons. Exercises also typically involve planes and ships coming in from elsewhere, mostly notably from the island of Guam, in the Western Pacific.

US Forces Korea said Tuesday it had received no instructions to stop upcoming military drills, according to a report from Stars and Stripes, an unofficial military newspaper.

"In coordination with our [South Korean] partners, we will continue with our current military posture until we receive updated guidance from the Department of Defense ... and/or Indo-Pacific Command," spokeswoman Col. Jennifer Lovett told Stars and Stripes in an email.

The South Korean President's office said Tuesday it was still trying to figure out what Trump meant in his military comments. "At this moment, we need to figure out president Trump's accurate meaning and intention," a South Korean statement said.

Yeah, good luck with that.
 
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shakeysix

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Maybe someone could make a Nobel Peace Prize out of Pla-Do, spray paint it gold and have Sean Hannity present it to him. They could do a big Fux News special on it. Trump could blow on for hours about how great he is, and, while he is distracted by his Prrressshiousss, the thinking Republicans could step in and save... oh, wait. I see the flaw in my plan. --s6
 

regdog

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Trump trusts Un do what he promised.

"I may be wrong, I mean I may stand before you in six months and say, 'Hey I was wrong,'" said Trump, before adding, "I don't know that I'll ever admit that, but I'll find some kind of an excuse."

Link-CNN video tweet

:e2smack:
 

MaeZe

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The State Department is apparently making propaganda videos for NK now. Or making them for us using Kim's examples.

Watch the “movie trailer” Trump showed Kim Jong Un about North Korea’s possible future
In Singapore, Trump treated Kim to a Hollywood-style video about “two men, two leaders, one destiny.”...

Among the many tactics President Donald Trump rolled out in his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore was apparently a four-minute video, styled like a movie trailer, that casts Trump and Kim as the heroes of a story about “two men, two leaders, one destiny.”

It was part of an overall pitch that reaching a deal between the US and North Korea would help North Korea advance technologically and economically — including, Trump suggested, some real estate development.

“They have great beaches,” Trump said. “You see that whenever they are exploding the cannons in the ocean,” he said. “I said look at that view. That would make a great condo. I explained it. I said instead of doing that, you could have the best hotels in the world. Think of it from the real estate perspective. South Korea and China and they own the land in the middle. Great. I told them, you may not want to do what’s there. You may want to do a smaller version of it. That could be. He looked at that tape.”

The “tape,” actually a video that Trump showed Kim on an iPad, was presented in both English and Korean to journalists before Trump’s press conference.

“History is always evolving, and there comes a time when only a few are called upon to make a difference,” the narrator of the video says. “But the question is — what difference will the few make? The past doesn’t have to be the future. Out of the darkness can come the light, and the light of hope can burn bright.”

The video is heavy-handed in its Hollywood approach — it casts the potential reconciliation between North and South Korea as a “sequel,” and the narrator proudly declares, “Destiny Pictures presents: a story of opportunity.”

Trump's imaginary world knows no bounds and my jaw is still on the ground.
 

cornflake

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Because Kim doesn't know how to build hotels? Trump is so ignorant it's deeply embarrassing.
 

kikazaru

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Ever since he's been elected, my "outrage meter" has regularly gone past "WTF?" to "holy shit" and the last few days it's been registering at "hair on fire." I think it's finally burnt out and I'm at "dead inside" and I can no longer be shocked or outraged at this man; just when I think he can't get any lower, he manages it.

Rock bottom not only has a basement, but it apparently it goes on forever.
 

regdog

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Remember the American tourist to NK who swiped a poster from a hotel and came home dead? Not a lot of touristy appeal there--s6


Otto Warmbier was never mentioned during the meeting. Odd considering Trump said he was the motivation for the summit.


Link
 

nighttimer

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The Great Dealmaker is huffing his own farts again...
At the press conference following his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on Tuesday, President Trump called himself “an emissary of the American people” and spoke of “my instinct, my ability, or talent” for negotiation. “My whole life has been deals,” said Trump. “I’ve done great at it.”


Trump is indeed a skilled salesman, and his presentation of the new U.S.–North Korean denuclearization agreement is a fine sales job. But the target of that sales job isn’t Kim. It’s you. Trump and Kim are working together to pass off their toothless pact as a milestone. It’s a con, and you’re the mark.


Three times during his press conference, Trump was asked about North Korea’s failure to honor previous agreements in which it made similar pledges. Each time the question was asked, Trump blamed the collapse of these agreements on previous American presidents. As evidence, Trump claimed that during the summit, Kim had told him that North Korea lacked “confidence” in Trump’s predecessors. In a post-summit interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Trump said Kim had explained that “he was let down by the United States.” Far from challenging this statement, Trump used it to bolster his argument that no other American president could have worked with North Korea as Trump has. “I don’t think they honestly could have done it,” said Trump.


This is the key to understanding the Trump-Kim relationship: Trump isn’t competing with Kim or even trying to win him over. He’s using Kim to compete for status with previous American presidents. “A lot of people are saying it’s historic,” Trump told Stephanopoulos, referring to the summit. “We’ve done something that’s very unique. Nobody’s met with the [Kim] family … No president has, certainly.”


If Trump’s goal had been to maximize concessions from North Korea, he would have set high standards for the agreement, conveyed resolve, and kept his cards close to his vest. He has done the opposite. In the press conference, Trump blabbed about the limits of U.S. intelligence on North Korea: “probably less there than any other country.” He explained how we had detected Kim’s missile-engine-testing site: “We’re able to see because of the heat that it emits.”


In a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity on Tuesday, Trump said his months of threats against North Korea before the two agreed to meet had just been bluffs: “The rhetoric, I hated to do it. Sometimes I felt foolish doing it.” And he shrugged off the idea of holding Kim to human-rights standards. “He has to be a rough guy,” Trump told Voice of America.

When your adversary wants concessions, you’re supposed to raise the price by projecting reluctance. Instead, Trump has expressed eagerness to do what Kim wants. Trump says he wants to end joint U.S. military exercises with South Korea—a long-standing North Korean goal—since he wants to save money anyway. He hints at a rift in the alliance with Seoul, grousing that South Korea doesn’t pay the whole cost of the exercises. And he signals that he’d be happy to pull U.S. troops off the peninsula altogether: “I want to get our soldiers out.”


Trump isn’t trying to impress Kim. He’s trying to impress you. He starts by lowering the bar, claiming that any summit outcome is better than the nuclear holocaust people feared after Trump escalated the war of words with Pyongyang. “You could have lost, you know, 30, 40, 50 million people” in a nuclear war, Trump pointed out in the press conference. Then, to pad the tally of gains from the summit, Trump double-counts things North Korea had done beforehand: releasing hostages and suspending missile launches. Trump demands extra credit for not giving North Korea $150 billion, which he falsely claims Obama gave up in the nuclear deal with Iran. (Spoiler: It was Iran’s money.)


In the Singapore agreement, Trump hasn’t insisted that Kim accept clear methods of verification. Instead, Trump asks you to accept Kim’s vague assurances. “I do trust him,” Trump told Stephanopoulos. When asked how denuclearization will be verified, Trump offers mumbo-jumbo: “It’s going to be achieved by having a lot of people there, and as we develop a certain trust.” Trump says you’ll have to wait 15 years for proof that the deal was honored, since “scientifically,” it takes that long to denuclearize.

This guy. This fuckin' guy...:rolleyes
 

Jolly-Boo

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“He has to be a rough guy,”

This fuckin' guy indeed.

Honestly I bet I know about NK than he does. And it doesn't take much. Just watch the Vice trip Shane Smith did. Wonderful stuff.
 

shakeysix

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The sad fact is that Trump has to think about the 100 year old parents of our Korean war dead. According to him these poor old geezers are fighting their way through crowds of hostile news reporters to beg Trump to have their son's remains returned. Funny thing, my Uncle John McMullen was a Korean war vet. He died last April of old age. He was damn near 90. His mother, my grandmother, would be 117. Take it from me, Grandma is looong gone.

Like I tell my high school students--Trump, you are going to have to come up with a better lie than that. You owe me a better lie! --s6
 

Lyv

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Oh, hey!

North Korea has increased nuclear production at secret sites, say U.S. officials

Reminder: On June 12, Trump said there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that North Korea has increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months — and that Kim Jong Un may try to hide those facilities as he seeks more concessions in nuclear talks with the Trump administration, U.S. officials told NBC News.

Kim Jong Un's a dictator, and Trump very much wants to join that club. Kim Jong Un will play him like a fiddle.
 

cornflake

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Lyv

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Yeah, because one of those nuts is clearly more intelligent (and knowledgeable, and prepared) than the other. I'd say it's the one with the bad hair but...
Ha!

Sad and worrying part is that you don't actually have to be smart to play Trump. You just have to be smarter than Trump. And so far, Kim Jong Un has been playing Trump. Maybe he just listens to his advisers more, but how smart do you really have to be to follow "Flatter his ego and he'll cave?"
 

shakeysix

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Next Trump will declare this Korea escalating instead of dismantling issue "fake news"-- something concocted by angry Dems to tarnish his shining triumph and so, it will be ignored. Except by US Intelligence, of course, but who is going to believe those liars? Oh, it's a tacky, lethal web he weaves, he that is too blindly arrogant to see the truth--s6
 

cbenoi1

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Right about now, Trump is more concerned about his military parade than what's happening in Korea.

Pentagon grudgingly begins planning for Trump's military parade: Report
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...ns-planning-for-trumps-military-parade-report

Planning for Trump's military parade finally getting underway
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...itary-parade-finally-getting-underway-n887431
Pentagon officials told NBC News that they will be able to pull off the extravaganza, but the lack of momentum is notable — and possibly indicative of low enthusiasm for the event outside the Oval Office.

"There is only one person who wants this parade," a senior U.S. official said, referring to Trump.

Wait. Maybe Cohen is closer to his heart today...

Cohen says his loyalty is first to family and country, not Trump
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/02/politics/michael-cohen-loyalty-donald-trump/index.html

"My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will," Cohen told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview published Monday morning. "I put family and country first."

Cohen has famously said he would take a bullet for Trump and he has fashioned himself as Trump's "fixer," willing to help handle situations quietly. But the interview raises new questions about Cohen's allegiance to Trump amid his legal troubles and subsequent isolation from the President's inner circle.

Talk about raining on one's parade...

-cb
 
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SWest

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...US Intelligence, of course, but who is going to believe those liars? ...

Michael Cohen, that's who:

... “I don’t agree with those who demonize or vilify the FBI. I respect the FBI as an institution, as well as their agents,” Cohen told me. “When they searched my hotel room and my home, it was obviously upsetting to me and my family. Nonetheless, the agents were respectful, courteous and professional. I thanked them for their service and as they left, we shook hands.”

Cohen also refused to criticize the Mueller investigation.


"I don’t like the term witch hunt,” he said, adding that he condemned Russia for interfering in the 2016 election.


“As an American, I repudiate Russia’s or any other foreign government’s attempt to interfere or meddle in our democratic process, and I would call on all Americans to do the same,” he said.


And in a direct rebuttal to President Trump, who sent out a tweet last week repeating Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russia did not interfere in our election, Cohen added this: “Simply accepting the denial of Mr. Putin is unsustainable.” ...
 

blacbird

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Next Trump will declare this Korea escalating instead of dismantling issue "fake news"-- something concocted by angry Dems to tarnish his shining triumph and so, it will be ignored.

Or, if it can't be ignored, he'll blame it on Obama. Or Hillary. Or, more likely, both. And then say he knew this was going to happen all along, and wasn't that a tremendous, tremendous, very very smart, incredible, performance he made with the fat little rocket man in Singapore, just to prove how devious the FLRM is, and what an incredible, incredible, tremendous, very very tremendous man ol' Bone Spurs is.

And tremendously, very bigly tremendously sexy he is.

caw