No Big Deal

 None of us should be surprised at the collapse of the summit talks between Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump in Hanoi last week. Over the past few months the Trump camp had given the impression that they were going to seriously respond to the Democratic Korean call for an end to sanctions and the state of war that still exists between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). But at the end of the day the chief American war-lord was unwilling, or possibly unable, to put anything on the table to match the Korean side’s reasonable and balanced stance towards peace and security on the Korean peninsula.

            In Vietnam Trump told the media that the DPRK was asking for too much. “It was about the sanctions,” he said. “They were willing to denuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that. Sometimes you have to walk and this was just one of those times”. Now he’s blaming his Democrat foes in Congress for undermining his position during the talks with the DPRK leader.

 Others, however, will maintain that Trump has become a prisoner of the most reactionary and aggressive elements of the US ruling class. He has surrounded himself with aides who represent the “war party” that some Americans call the “deep state” that cuts across all party, regional or religious divides to serve the interests of the big corporations and finance houses of American imperialism.

            The Americans had missed “an opportunity that comes once in a thousand years” said Choe Son Hui, the deputy foreign minister of the DPRK. What happens next depends entirely on the Americans.

Trump, a property speculator who claims to be a brilliant negotiator, has hinted that he still wants to talk to Kim Jong Un. Whether he will depends on what the Americans are willing to put on the table next time round.

            Trump bitterly resents the fact that Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people” and even more absurdly for “reaching out to the Muslim world”.

This rubbishy prize has been the preserve, with a few honourable exceptions, of retired Western politicians and prominent agents of imperialism. The anti-communist Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov won it in 1975.  The reactionary Polish union leader Lech Walesa was rewarded for his counter-revolutionary campaign in 1983.  Gorbachov was similarly rewarded for his treachery in 1990.

 Needless to say the Dalai Lama is on the list of winners together with Henry Kissinger, who was jointly given the prize with the chief north Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho in 1973 for negotiating the Vietnamese peace accord. Comrade Le, the only communist ever to get this accolade, took the principled stand and declined the prize on the grounds that the war in Vietnam was still raging.

            Shinzo Abe, the Japanese premier, has nominated Trump for the gong on the basis of his master’s supposed efforts for peace on the Korean peninsula. Well Trump will have to try harder if he still wants the glory he believes the medal will bring him.