Joseph DeTrani, former Special Envoy for negotiations with North Korea, shares what advice he would offer the president, from his interactions with North Korean officials:
- “During two years of intense negotiations with North Korea, from August 2003 to September 2005, North Korea’s constant refrain to U.S. negotiators was, ‘Accept us as a nuclear weapons state and we’ll be a good friend of the U.S.’… Kim Jong Un would establish his legacy if he could normalize relations with the U.S.”
- “If Kim Jong Un is convinced that this would never happen, then Kim may revert to plan B: Get the U.S. to agree to a cap on the number of nuclear weapons the North can retain, promising not to manufacture any additional fissile material or weapons. Kim may think that plan B is attainable, with time and perseverance.”