Weekly Opinion Editorial
TRUMP TRUMPS CLINTON!
by Steve Fair
“I was recently asked if Crooked Hillary Clinton is going to run in 2020? My answer was, "I hope so! President Trump tweeted out Monday morning. Later that day at a news conference at the White House, Trump again urged the former Secretary of State to tee it up. “Hillary, please run again,” the president said with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell standing behind him. Trump was responding to Clinton’s recent criticism of his handling of North Korea and talk that she is considering running for POTUS again in 2020.
Last week in London Clinton was asked if she was worried about Trump launching a nuclear attack, she responded: “I’m worried about that now. I had big differences with so many of the other people who have been president during my lifetime, but I never worried about that.” Apparently her husband, former President Bill Clinton was worried about North Korea developing nuclear weapons as has the last three US presidents.
In 1994, Clinton sent former President Carter to offer $4 billion worth of economical and nuclear energy technology in exchange for North Korea to halt the development of a nuclear weapon. North Korea violated the agreement and in 2006 successfully completed a nuclear test. President Bush negotiated an agreement in 2007 in which the US would send North Korea $400 million in food and fuel in exchange for their shutting down their main nuclear reactor. In 2009, shortly after President Obama took office, North Korea conducted another nuclear test. Obama sent diplomats to North Korea and asked Kim Jong II to stop. The talks went on for three years until in 2012, Kim agreed to stop the nuclear tests in exchange for more monetary aid. But he didn’t stop development or testing. Kim has consistently maintained the aggressor is the United States, not North Korea and development of nuclear weapons is essential for his country’s national defense. Never mind that he has vowed to use his nukes on the U.S. Obama convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions on North Korea’s coal exports, but that doesn’t appear to have slowed Kim and his pursuit of a long range nuclear warhead. It is now estimated he has upwards of 60 plus nukes under his control.
It is clear the days of negotiating- aka paying off- North Korea are over. President Trump recently warned Pyongyang they would face ‘fire and fury,’ if they continued testing missiles near US allies and threatening to attack. Secretary of Defense Gen. James "Mad Dog Mattis said, “The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.” After that public exchange, Kim appeared to have backed down. He likely realizes that Trump and Mattis aren’t like the three previous POTUS.
If Hillary Clinton wants to ‘tee it up’ in 2020, she had better be prepared to address her weak stance on North Korea and how ineffective the Obama administration’s (while she was SOS) strategy was in dealing with their nuclear development. Trump ‘trumps’ Hillary every time on North Korea.
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