VIDEO: 'Wild card' Trump heads into North Korea's line of sight

'Wild card' Trump heads into North Korea's line of sight

By Joshua Berlinger, CNN

November 7, 2017

via cnn video

VIDEO

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/06/politics/donald-trump-north-korea-south-korea-visit/index.html

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Hong Kong (CNN)For the first time as US President, Donald Trump will be in Kim Jong Un's immediate neighborhood.

The US President is headed to South Korea on Tuesday, his second stop on an 13-day trip across Asia where the standoff with North Korea is likely to loom large.

The threat posed by North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles has been a top foreign policy priority for the Trump administration. The worry is that should Pyongyang successfully pair the two technologies, the reclusive country would have the potential to launch a devastating strike against a US city.

In the South Korean capital Seoul, Trump will find people who have lived with that reality for decades.

"It's crucial for Trump to show that he's willing to defend and protect South Korea because there's a lot of questions and concerns on the part of South Koreans about his commitment to that alliance, and that has fed fears here in South Korea that they may be abandoned," said Jean Lee, a global fellow at the Wilson Center and former Pyongyang bureau chief for The Associated Press.

Seoul has sat in range of North Korean artillery since the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953. Experts believe that if war were to resume on the Korean Peninsula, the city would see tens of thousands of people killed in the first hours.

Many in South Korea, especially those who carry more liberal views, worry Trump's heated rhetoric, mocking and name-calling of North Korea's leader is exacerbating that danger.

A spokesman for the South Korean President's office urged citizens to warmly welcome Trump, though a handful of protests have been organized ahead of the visit.

"If he comes in here rattling his saber and using that sort of militant rhetoric, it's going to go down very poorly because this is the place that suffers the consequences," said John Delury, a professor of international relations at Yonsei University's Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul.

Trump won't visit the heavily-fortified demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea -- foregoing what has been a symbolic opportunity for US commanders in chief to stare into the Hermit Kingdom -- declaring it a "little bit of a cliche."

via cnn video

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'Trump's the wild card, not the reassurance guy'

By contrast, the South Korean government, led by President Moon Jae-in, will be looking to Trump for reassurance that the two countries are in this together, according to Van Jackson, a strategy fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.

"Trump's visit is a huge variable. It's a great opportunity to show a unity of purpose against North Korea and reinforce the larger US commitment to Asia, but there's also a risk of provoking North Korea," Jackson told CNN in an email.

"We should brace for more heated rhetoric and some attempt to reassure South Korea. For most presidents, those tasks would not be mutually exclusive. The problem is Trump's the wild card, not the reassurance guy."

When he arrives in Seoul, Trump is scheduled meet with his South Korean counterpart, speak to service members from both countries and address the National Assembly in Seoul, according to the White House.

Trump's first Asia stop was in Tokyo, where he met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Those two have developed a good rapport and both share a hawkish stance toward Pyongyang.

Despite the fact that both the United States and South Korea continually stress the importance of their enduring alliance, Trump and Moon don't appear to share as close a relationship as Trump and his Japanese counterpart do.

Moon favors more engagement with Pyongyang and Trump's hard-line public stance on North Korea has added to the perception that a rift has opened up between the two men.

Trump's recent tweets saying that his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is "wasting his time" on negotiations and another intimating Seoul was appeasing their northern neighbors likely didn't help.

"Hopefully Trump visiting Korea will give him greater appreciation of what's at stake in Korea in a human and war fighting sense if things go awry," said Jackson of Victoria University.

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