Trump asks South Korea's president: 'Do you have to reunify?'

[DonViejo]

By Josh Rogin November 15 at 12:04 PM

While drinking tea with South Korean President Moon Jae-in before their bilateral meeting last week in Seoul, President Trump posed an unusual question about North Korea-South Korea relations to his host: “Do you have to reunify?” Trump asked.

Many Koreans might have seen it as a tactless, insensitive inquiry. Millions of Korean families were cut in half when the Korean War broke out. Moon himself is the son of two North Korean refugees who fled to South Korea in 1950, leaving several family members behind. But rather than take offense to Trump’s question, Moon took the opportunity to educate Trump on the history of the Korean conflict and relate that to the crisis facing the peninsula today.

“Posing the question ‘Do you have to reunify?’ to a member of a separated family could be quite hurtful, because it’s like as if asking, do you have to see your family members or not?” Choo Mi-ae, the leader of Moon’s ruling Democratic Party, told me in an interview Wednesday. “This could have been asked by anybody, but people who come to South Korea almost never ask it,” said Choo. “The fact that he posed this question, frankly speaking, gave us the opportunity to explain the need for reunification.”

Moon relayed the story to Choo the next day. According to Choo, Moon told Trump about his great sense of responsibility for those people who are still in North Korea, suffering under the inhumane treatment of the Kim Jong Un regime. Moon also talked about the need to bring the light of democracy to the North Korean people.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2017/11/15/trump-asks-south-koreas-president-do-you-have-to-reunify

[OldHippieChick]

1. I am so embarrassed and despondent.

How could we have unleashed this on the world?

[left-of-center2012]

2. Trump is such a moron

The whole world is watching

[NastyRiffraff]

3. He embarrasses our country

every time he opens his stupid mouth. I used to shudder every time Dubya went abroad, afraid he would say something stupid. He often did, but he wasn't in the same class of awkward stupidity as Dump.

[louis-t]

4. So, instead of slapping the orange off his face like he should have

Jae-in tried to educate the dotard. Can't we just send a 9-year-old in his place? We'd be better off.

[Kentonio]

6. Like with Xi, the danger isn't that they'll educate him

It's that they'll use the opportunity to push their national interests onto him in the name of education, and like the dolt he is he'll walk away convinced he needs to act on it.

[C_U_L8R]

5. Iz our President learning?

It's like the Orange Loaf is on training wheels.

[Ilsa]

7. He doesn't understand.

Other than Ivanka, I doubt he'd give a shit if he was told he couldn't see the rest rest of his family for decades.