With New North Korea-US Talks Likely, Will a Deal Result?

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With New North Korea-US Talks Likely, Will a Deal Result? 

Promised talks this month between the United States and North Korea will give President Donald Trump yet another chance to conclude a deal with the reclusive nation, something that has eluded several of his predecessors.

But after three summits and more than two years of on-and-off talks, some analysts are asking just how well Trump's self-proclaimed prowess as a dealmaker translates to the world of diplomacy.

This week, Pyongyang said it is willing to meet with Washington later in September through a message conveyed in its state media Korea Central News Agency (KCNA). 

"I think the record is beginning to become clear that he is not as great a dealmaker as he believes and as he has advertised," said Alexander Vershbow, who served as an ambassador to South Korea during the George W. Bush administration.

Trump has presented himself as a master dealmaker who can transfer his business dealmaking skills into the world of politics and diplomacy since announcing his candidacy in 2015.

"I make a good deal," Trump said as he prepared for his presidential bid for the White House in 2015.

"I make good deals. That's what I do. I would make great deals for our country." - my @SRQRepublicans speech

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 21, 2015

"Deals are my art forms," said the author of "The Art of the Deal" in 2014. "I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks."

Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2014

Christopher Hill, a chief U.S. negotiator in nuclear talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration, said, "I'm skeptical that that type of business dealmaking can really translate into diplomatic so-called dealmaking."

Opportunity

Wendy Sherman, who served as North Korea policy coordinator during the administration of President Bill Clinton, said if Trump didn't get a deal in the real estate development market, he could seek another opportunity.

"But when it comes to war and peace, when it comes to the economic prosperity of the United States, things are little bit more complicated," Sherman said.

FILE - Real estate mogul Donald Trump announces, during a news conference in New York, the opening of his Taj Mahal Resort Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., Feb. 28, 1989.

Baruch Fischhoff, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Institute for Politics and Strategy, said Trump's dealmaking with world leaders is influenced by his dealmaking in the business world.

"Mr. Trump's business experience is primarily as a real estate developer," Fischhoff said. "In that business arena, it was possible for him to have major properties go bankrupt and still get funding for new ones."

In the world of business, deals are often viewed through the lens of cost and benefit analysis, and strategies involved are aimed at maximizing profit while minimizing cost, said Vershbow, the former Bush administration ambassador.

However, in the world of diplomacy, Vershbow continued, costs and benefits cannot always be assessed in monetary terms and strategies involved cannot solely be based on gaining financial advantage.

"In the business world, you're talking about economic benefits and costs," he said. "It's kind of fairly dry but straightforward. In [diplomatic] negotiations, there're many different factors in terms of building trust between different countries, different cultures, and calculating the interest of third parties who may not directly be involved but could be affected. So it's more complex undertaking."

It is in the international system of alliances where Trump's business calculations tend to overshadow the building of relationships and fostering intrinsic values, said Bruce Klingner, former CIA deputy division chief of Korea and current senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

"Trump's transactional views on the U.S. alliance and the stationing of American troops overseas are at odds with 70 years of post-World War II American strategy," Klingner said. "Seeking alliances as business transactions, rather than based on [sharing] common values and strategic objectives, is a disservice to the men and women in the U.S. military."

On the Korean Peninsula, Trump has been demanding that South Korea pay more to keep the U.S. troop presence there to guard against a North Korean threat. And while Seoul has agreed to pay more, it rejects Trump's view that it is not paying enough. 

FILE - President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi., Feb. 28, 2019.

Top-down approach

In pursuing a denuclearization deal with Pyongyang, Trump began dealing with the North Korean leader himself in a so-called top-down approach toward diplomacy. This had the two leaders beginning the talks rather than adhering to the diplomatic convention of using working-level negotiators to put together a deal before any top-level meeting.

Sherman said, "The president sort of left things at the top and keeps saying what a great relationship he and Kim have." She continued, "Personal relationships certainly matter. [But] in very complex negotiations, it is not nearly sufficient."

Trump boasted of a beautiful letter he received from Kim even as North Korea was firing missiles in August amid stalled talks,  and Trump frequently said North Korea has "tremendous economic potential," in an apparent move to lure Pyongyang to the negotiating table.

"Trump started talking about beachfront condos as he did in Singapore," Hill said, mentioning the location of the first Trump-Kim summit in 2018. "Maybe he believes. I don't think the North Koreans do. I don't think anyone else does."

At the Hanoi summit, Trump walked away from making a deal after North Korea rejected the U.S. proposal to give up its entire nuclear weapons program and instead offered a partial denuclearization in exchange for sanctions relief.

FILE - North Korea test fires a new weapon, in this undated photo released Aug. 11, 2019, by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency.

Vershbow said a big-deal approach that demands a full denuclearization up front is ineffective because of the complications involved, including getting North Korea to inventory its nuclear arsenal, and verifying and inspecting its nuclear program.

"[Trump] thinks he can have a big bang and all the issues will fall into place," Vershbow said. "That's sometimes possible. But in the case of North Korea, clearly, there are … tremendous complications …. so this is simply impossible to solve with a big bang. You need to accept certain incrementalism."

Vershbow continued that a big deal approach could be risky, putting the U.S. and its allies, South Korea and Japan, in "a corner."

"Once you say it's all or nothing, either you succeed or if you fail, you're sort of forced to escalate and possibly even bring in military threats rather than having more modest expectations and proceeding step-by-step and maybe creating some momentum," he said.

Vipin Narang, a professor of political science and a North Korea expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Trump might "blame [the outgoing National Security Adviser John] Bolton for the Hanoi hold-up, and reset America's negotiating position toward a step-by-step deal, comprehensive in scope but implemented in phases."

Trump announced he fired Bolton on Tuesday over disagreements on foreign policy issues, including North Korea. Bolton was known for taking a tough stance on North Korea, and against Trump's overtures to Kim and their meeting at the inter-Korean border in June.

September 15, 2019 at 05:51PM

Native American 'Aunties' Raise Funds to Feed Migrants

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Native American 'Aunties' Raise Funds to Feed Migrants

A group of Native American women from several tribes in Oklahoma have launched a nonprofit organization they're calling the "Auntie Project: Native Women of Service."

Their goal is to help indigenous kids in need, beginning with child migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

The idea came to them in June, after hearing that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) would move 1,400 unaccompanied migrant children to Fort Still, a U.S. Army post near Lawton, Oklahoma.

This undated photo shows members of the Auntie Project: Native Women of Service, meeting in Norman, Okla.

"And it struck a nerve in all of us," said Amanda Cobb-Greetham, chair of the University of Oklahoma Native American Studies program and a member of the Chickasaw Nation.

Built in 1869 on the ancestral lands of the Kiowa, Comanche and Apache tribes, Fort Sill was the site where several Chiricahua Apache prisoners, including about 50 children, were "dumped unprotected" in the autumn of 1894, among them Chief Geronimo, who died there in 1909. 

"In fact, there were Native peoples born in captivity in Fort Sill even after Oklahoma statehood," Cobb-Greetham said. "And there was an Indian boarding school there, for many, many years — that really tapped into our own and our families' history as boarding school survivors."

The first Fort Sill Indian School near Lawton, Ok., which operated from its opening in 1871 until 1899-1900. 2027, Josiah Butler Collection.

Childhood trauma

The Aunties, like Native Americans across the country, understand the trauma children suffer as a result of being separated from family and home.

"And we told ourselves, 'If indigenous children are going to be at Fort Sill again, wouldn't it be something if this time around they had some aunties looking out for them?" Cobb-Greetham said.

Her invoking of the term "indigenous" reflects the view of many Native Americans that migrants from Latin American countries are "family."

"There has been more talk lately about how all Latin American peoples have indigenous roots, especially from Chicanesque peoples who have indigenous roots in Mexico," said Christina Leza, a Yoeme-Chicana linguistic and cultural anthropologist at Colorado College.

A Quiche indigenous woman faces a monument that pays homage to migrants from the town of Salcaja, at the entrance to the town in Guatemala, June 7, 2019. Central Americans still dream of reaching the United States as Mexico cracks down on migration.

"But I'm hearing it more and more from Native American activists who say that before the Europeans came, we were all indigenous people, so there's that shared history of kinship," Leza said.

It is not known what percentage of migrant detainees are indigenous, but a 2015 report by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said a number of detainees speak only indigenous languages, and other reports suggest ICE authorities have difficulty providing the translation services required by law.

Reaching families in need

HHS in late July announced it was holding off on plans to send children to Fort Sill, so the Aunties shifted their focus to families coming in from Mexico.

"What we have done is partner with the Oklahoma food bank," Cobb-Greetham said. "They are part of an extensive network of food banks and can ensure that donations can be translated into food and delivered to the El Paso Food Bank."

A migrant family from Central America waits outside the Annunciation House shelter in El Paso, Texas, Nov. 29, 2018, after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer drops them off.

Cathy Nestlen, a spokesperson for the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma (RFBO), part of greater Feeding America network, explained how the Aunties' donations will be spent.

"The Auntie Project is helping us to offset the cost that we have incurred towards food that we take to Texas," Nestlen said. "The El Paso Food Bank been working with other nonprofits in the community because some migrant families are being released into the community as they await whatever the court system has in place for them. There's nowhere for them to go, so the nonprofits and churches in El Paso provide them housing and food."

The Aunties' donations won't reach thousands of unaccompanied minors picked up by U.S. immigration officials and transferred to any of more than 170 HHS child shelters in 23 states — 30 in Texas alone — as none of them accept donations.

Central American migrants wait for food in a pen erected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to process a surge of migrant families and unaccompanied minors in El Paso, Texas, March 27, 2019.

That's because legislation passed in 1870, the so-called Antideficiency Act, bans government workers and agencies from accepting or spending any money above what Congress gives them or accepting volunteer workers. The law came in response to 19th century abuses — agencies allowed themselves to run out of money early, assuming Congress would allocate more funds to keep them running. 

Texas Representatives Chip Roy, a Republican, and Vincente Gonzalez, a Democrat, have introduced twin bills that would allow ORR shelters to accept donations, but analysts say neither stands much chance of passing.

On Sunday, the Aunties will hold a fundraiser, where they will present the RFBO with a check for $10,000, the first, they hope, of many.

"Our goal right now is sustainability," Cobb-Greetham said. "We would like to think that 20 years from now, something comes up and people might say, 'Oh, you should call the Aunties!'"

September 15, 2019 at 05:42PM

US-Bound Migrants, Asylum-Seekers Wait Out Policy Changes

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US-Bound Migrants, Asylum-Seekers Wait Out Policy Changes

LAREDO, TEXAS/NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO — Editor's note: VOA is withholding some identifying information and images when requested by the migrant or asylum-seeker, to limit risks to their safety, as criminals in northern Mexico are targeting migrants for kidnapping, assault and ransom. Only first names are included in this report from the border, which contains personal accounts as told by migrants that have not been verified by VOA but are consistent with reports from a wide range of news outlets and sources.

The U.S. Border Patrol reports it has intercepted more than 800,000 migrants and asylum-seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border so far in the 2019 fiscal year.

In recent months, the Trump administration has returned tens of thousands of mostly Central American migrants to Mexico to await U.S. immigration hearings under the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the "Remain in Mexico" program.

This past Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the administration to deny asylum to all recent non-Mexican claimants who hadn't already been denied asylum in a third country before reaching the U.S. border. Even before the Supreme Court decision, U.S. officials reported nine of 10 asylum claims were being rejected.

Despite such statistics, and amid rapidly shifting U.S. policies, migrants and asylum-seekers from the Americas, Africa and beyond await a determination of their fates while biding their time on both sides of America's southern border.

VOA reporters Victoria Macchi and Ramon Taylor spoke with a broad sampling of migrants and asylum-seekers in early August. Many departed their home countries months before U.S. policy changes went into effect, under assumptions that no long apply. All are awaiting immigration court hearings. These are their stories.

Melissa, 25: 'It's only been an American nightmare'
Country of Origin: Venezuela
Status: Returned to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, under MPP

Melissa fled Venezuela in late July seeking asylum in the United States. As a critic of Venezuela's disputed President Nicolás Maduro, she feared retribution from the government. Along her route, she says she was kidnapped and extorted by smugglers in Reynosa, Mexico, who forced her to cross into the U.S. between ports of entry, where she was detained. Melissa was returned to the International Bridge spanning the Rio Grande river to Nuevo Laredo, Puente 1, lacking laces in her shoes, a change of clothes, food or shelter. Her pleas to remain in the U.S. to await her Oct. 22 court hearing were denied. "I thought this would be, as they say, the American dream. But for me, it's only been an American nightmare."

Voices of Migrants: Detained at the US-Mexico Border video player.

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Victor, 26: 'My baby was shaking from the cold'
Country of Origin: El Salvador
Status: Released to temporary nonprofit migrant facility in Laredo, Texas

After spending three days at a crowded U.S. detention facility in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Victor and son Daniel, 2, were transferred to a migrant shelter in Laredo. They were the only ones in his detention group who were not returned to Mexico under MPP, he said. He'll await his court date in the U.S. Victor describes their brief time in detention as a test of physical and mental endurance. At night, the air conditioning made the facility dangerously cold, he says, and Daniel caught the flu. "My baby was shaking from the cold, so I wrapped him tighter." Victor said Daniel received prompt medical attention. Since their release, Victor's goal is to provide "security" for his son, free of violence.

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Keiny, 27: 'Faith in God and the truth'
Country of Origin: Cuba
Status: Returned to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, under MPP

In a barren shelter in Nuevo Laredo, Keiny and his seven-months-pregnant wife are counting the days until their immigration court date later this month. They are among Laredo's first scheduled MPP hearings and have been in the border city since July with no lawyer and no money, only "faith in God and the truth." With the savings from a food cart he ran in Cuba, the couple paid about $475 each for a flight to Nicaragua. From there, they went by bus to Honduras, Guatemala and into Mexico. Frustrated by the long waits and dangers asylum-seekers face on Nuevo Laredo's streets, Keiny insists returning to Cuba is not possible for him and his wife. It's his fourth attempt to leave Cuba for good. The first three were by boat. When he was returned, he was forced to pay hefty fines and says his family was surveilled. If his asylum bid fails and he is sent back again, he fears punishment in the form of jail, or even torture. "I don't feel safe in my country. The police and government do what they want."

Voices of Migrants: Fleeing Violence, Crime video player.

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Julia, 34: 'I don't want that anymore for my children'
Country of Origin: Democratic Republic of Congo
Status: Released to temporary nonprofit migrant facility in San Antonio, Texas

Julia and her two daughters, ages 15 and 9, left the DRC in 2014 after her eldest son was killed. They spent four years in Angola, but security concerns there prompted them to leave Africa entirely. Last year, they flew to Ecuador. On foot and by bus and boat, they made their way through South and Central America, into Mexico, and finally to the U.S.-Mexico border. They crossed the Rio Grande alone and reached out to border agents waiting on the other side. They were allowed to remain in the U.S. pending their first court hearing, scheduled for the first week of August. "I told them when we left Angola that we were headed for America. We're going to have a better life. … We suffered a lot. I don't want that anymore for my children."

Lilian, 30s: 'They treat us like delinquents'
Country of Origin: Honduras
Status: Returned to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, under MPP

Hours after being dropped off on the Mexican side of Puente 1 by U.S. border agents, Lilian says her group of migrants was told if they didn't get on the buses to Mexico's southern Chiapas state, nearly 2,000 kilometers away, they would be left to fend for themselves. A diabetic, traveling with her 9-year-old son, she said she was forced to dump all of her belongings when a smuggler took the group across the river, and she hasn't had access to insulin since then. She says it's cruel to make people wait three months for their November court date in Laredo, if they are just going to be rejected for asylum in the U.S. Her son's father, who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, has yet to find an attorney they can afford — and she's not alone. In June, only 1.3% of the nearly 13,000 MPP cases had legal representation. "We're coming to this country for a better life," Lilian says. "They treat us like delinquents, both in the U.S. and in Mexico."

Marvin, 38: 'The journey could have cost me my life'
Country of Origin: Honduras
Status: Released to temporary nonprofit migrant facility in San Antonio, Texas

When they set out northward in February, Marvin and the group he traveled with decided to avoid trains to minimize risks to the children. By the time the group — including his teenage son, Kevin, colleagues, and extended family members — got to the border, they knew they didn't want to pay fees to cartels to cross the river. He bided his time for a few days in Piedras Negras, visiting the river daily to determine where and when it would be safest to cross. "I prayed to God in that moment to clear the way for us," says Marvin, sitting beside his son in a San Antonio shelter waiting for their bus. They were allowed to remain in the U.S. pending their court hearing. "I know that the journey could have cost me my life along the way. … If doing nothing means you'll die, or that something will happen to you (in your home country), you'll do whatever it takes — risk illness and everything."

VOA Spanish Service reporters Jorge Agobian contributed reporting from Laredo, Texas, and Celia Mendoza from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Read their reports in Spanish.
 

September 15, 2019 at 05:40PM