Trump just threw out US North Korea policy because he ‘likes’ Kim Jong Un, and now everyone is really confused

Evan Vucci/AP Photo

President Donald Trump on Friday walked back new Treasury Department sanctions aimed at hurting North Korea.
The White House explained the move by stating Trump "likes" North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, adding that the president doesn’t think the sanctions are necessary.
The sanctions, which National Security Adviser John Bolton described as "important actions," had been announced by Treasury just a day before.

The US government’s new policy toward North Korea is apparently that President Donald Trump "likes" Kim Jong Un and is willing to let his friend slide on sanctions, a move that seemed to take his own administration by surprise.

Trump prompted confusion on Friday when he appeared to overturn new Treasury Department sanctions against North Korea, with the White House citing the president’s affinity for the North Korean leader as the reasoning.

The sanctions, which targeted Chinese shipping companies allegedly helping North Korea evade sanctions, were announced by the Treasury Department on Thursday.

National Security Adviser John Bolton described the sanctions as "important actions" in a tweet that day.

"The maritime industry must do more to stop North Korea’s illicit shipping practices," Bolton said. "Everyone should take notice and review their own activities to ensure they are not involved in North Korea’s sanctions evasion."

Less than 24 hours later, Trump tweeted, "It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!"

Subsequently, in an apparent attempt to clarify Trump’s tweet, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary."

Bruce Klingner, an expert on North Korea at the conservative Heritage Foundation, on Friday told a VOA News reporter this move from Trump "sends a signal that ‘maximum pressure,’ which was never maximum to begin with, isn’t going to get any stronger…Congress will not react well to this."

"Maximum pressure" refers to the Trump administration’s strategy of squeezing North Korea economically with sanctions in an effort to get Pyongyang to agree to denuclearization.

When asked for his thoughts on Trump’s abrupt shift, James Carafano, a leading national security expert at Heritage, told INSIDER, "My experience is wait for things to settle and see what is really up and not to jump off the roof at the first tweet."

Responding to Trump’s announcement, Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tweeted, "I’ve been working on sanctions policy for 15+ years. Don’t recall ever seeing a president overrule a Treasury announcement AFTER it was announced."

"The United States needs to decide on one policy and stick to it," Jon Wolfsthal, who served as the nuclear expert for the National Security Council under former President Barack Obama, told INSIDER.

"The factions and continued infighting show the US does not have its act together. Any good President or national security advisor would demand a normal process to determine and implement policy. What we have is chaos," added Wolfsthal, who is now director of the Nuclear Crisis Group.

Meanwhile, Democrats are going after Trump on the back and forth in his administration.

"There is no question that Trump is being played by Kim Jong Un — one of the world’s most vicious dictators. Sidestepping his own Treasury Dept. and withdrawing sanctions against North Korea the same day they were announced defies logic. Congress must step in," Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen tweeted.

In short, there’s a fair amount of confusion about this development and not a clear picture of where US policy toward North Korea really stands.

This all comes on the heels of Trump’s second summit with Kim, which took place in Hanoi, Vietnam, on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Many experts characterized the summit as a massive failure, as Trump walked away without a deal, but his supporters presented it as part of ongoing negotiations.

North Korea has since shown signs of increased military activity, and last week threatened to scrap talks with the US altogether.

North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui last Friday said that the relationship between Trump and Kim was still "still good and the chemistry is mysteriously wonderful." But she then added that Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were fostering an "atmosphere of hostility and mistrust."

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