Trump team's battle with North Korea has a glaring omission on the front lines

[DonViejo]

By David Nakamura September 20 at 8:17 PM

NEW YORK — President Trump and his top aides say they’re doing everything in their power to pursue a diplomatic and peaceful resolution to the North Korea nuclear threat. But eight months into Trump’s tenure, he has yet to nominate a U.S. ambassador to South Korea, a glaring omission as the White House tries to formulate a coherent policy to confront Pyongyang.

The vacancy has left President Moon Jae-in’s new government without a prestigious and powerful partner from the Trump administration on the ground in Seoul at a time of escalating anxiety in East Asia — and without someone to help decode the president’s rhetorical bombast. On Tuesday, Trump threatened during a speech at the United Nations to “totally destroy” North Korea if necessary.

“The North Korea issue is such a high priority that it is imperative there is coordination between the United States and South Korea, and there needs to be a rock-solid channel of communication,” said Scott Snyder, director of the U.S.-Korea policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. “That is simply absent.”

In some ways, Trump and his White House aides are personally compensating for that absence. On Thursday, Trump will meet separately with Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. The three leaders also will hold a trilateral discussion on North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the second time the three have done so during Trump’s tenure. Moon, who took office in May after Park Geun-hye resigned in scandal, also met with Trump at the White House in June for two days of meetings, including a working dinner.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-teams-battle-with-north-korea-has-a-glaring-omission-on-the-front-lines/2017/09/20/ced0e200-9e3c-11e7-9083-fbfddf6804c2_story.html

[underpants]

1. Maybe we could move our ambassador in Nambia over there

Just a thought

[spanone]

2. trump, like putin, hates the state department

[gratuitous]

3. Unwise yet unsurprising

Trump's a take-charge top-down kind of guy. An ambassador implies that there's some give-and-take between South Korea and the United States, as if South Korea is a sovereign nation in its own right. In Trumpworld, South Korea accepts the crumbs off his table and is grateful. He doesn't need their "input." If there's something that needs to be said, he'll tell the Koreans what he wants to hear from them, without any need for some fancy-pants so-called ambassador.