Daily Times

The meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has created a lot of frenzy and speculations in the international media.

Even though this hype could not fetch fruitful or meaningful results between the two countries, it has managed to create a possibility for North Korea’s nuclear programme to be contained through dialogue. Moreover, it has allowed North Korea to emerge as a key player in international politics because of its recent interactions with Trump — interactions which they enjoyed on an equal footing.

It is also a notable fact that before the meeting between North Korean supreme leader and the US president, the G-7 meeting took place and resulted in chaos. The US drew the ire of member states for his plans to impose high tariffs against the steel and aluminium imports from EU countries. The EU then announced tariffs on US goods, ranging from Harley Davidson motorcycles to Bourbon.. Canada and Mexico are also planning retaliatory taxes. Member states are now in a state of gridlock.

EU allies have been on the edge since Trump was sworn in as president. Experts had been of the view that the president would do a bad job at dealing with North Korea — especially since he couldn’t seem to keep his own allies happy.

However, where he has failed with his allies, he seems to be doing great with Kim. At a summit in Canada, the president of the United States rejected associating the country with “the rules-based international order” that America had built after World War II and threatened his own closest ally with a trade war. He insulted the Canadian prime minister, and then, just a few days later, lavished praise on Kim Jong-un, the world’s most repressive dictator.

Such reckless disregard for the security concerns of America’s allies, hostility to mutually beneficial trade, and wilful isolation at this level is unprecedented

Such reckless disregard for the security concerns of America’s allies, hostility to mutually beneficial trade, and wilful isolation of the US itself is unprecedented. Yet this is the foreign policy of the Trump administration. Quite explicitly, the leader of the free world wants to destroy the alliances, trading relationships, and international institutions that have characterised the American-led order for 70 years.

A few months ago, Trump mocked Kim Jong-un by calling him ‘rocket man’. Nevertheless, this time the US president showed flexibility in order to dispel the impression that he was hawkish. He decided to meet North Korea’s leader on June 12 in Singapore. Although, the North Korean Leader did not make any promises, he did imply that he’s ready to talk about his nukes.

Kim Jong-un has not given an exact date for the end to his country’s nuclear program. And he has not disclosed whether the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be allowed to inspect North Korea’s nukes.

North Korea has managed to threaten the US after the Soviet Union. Back then it was the Cuban missile crisis, and right now for many years it had been Kim Jong-un. So what changed? Over the past few years, Donald Trump has been consistently using negative terms for the North Korean leader by calling his regime a dictatorship, terming the country an evil empire — a despotic regime.

However, after the meeting in Singapore, the US president took a U-turn and called Kim Jong-un a brave leader who is popular amongst the general masses. In the same meeting, not only did Donald Trump recognise the existence of North Korea but also pledged that in the future, the military exercises that take place between US and South Korea would also be brought to a halt. Moreover, 28,000 US troops stationed in the Korean peninsula would be withdrawn in order to ensure security for North Korea.

This raised concerns because without consulting America’s allies in the region, Trump reiterated his desire to withdraw American troops from South Korea.

In the beginning of World War II, America established a set of global norms that solidified its position atop a rules-based international system. These included promoting democracy, making enduring commitments to countries that share its values, protecting allies, advancing free trade and building institutions and patterns of behaviour that legitimise American power by giving less powerful countries a say.

But at present, Trump’s doctrine has completely devastated the established norms of the international system. On one hand, Trump’s regime is adept at cutting military expenditure and on the other hand, it is taking all possible radical steps to increase tension in the international political scenario, which would help the military-industrial complex increase its profits as can be witnessed in the political scenario of the Middle East and South Asia.

Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal and his embrace of a protectionist approach to trade, even with close allies, have blown a hole in the Transatlantic alliance, a breach so big that it could jeopardise decades of stability and prosperity in the West. And as a result it may end up benefiting two other global powers: Russia and China.

The two sides (EU and US) are clashing over basic principles, calling into question the shared values and approach to the world that have defined relations between Europe and Washington since the 1940s.

Hegemony and power politics persist in the world; the urgent call for a more just and equitable international order must be heeded.

The new world order should be based on the narrative that democracy in international relations is an unstoppable trend of the times; while various traditional and non-traditional security threats keep emerging, the force for peace must prevail, as security and stability are what people desire. Although, unilateralism, trade protectionism, and backlash against globalisation are taking new forms, the pursuit of cooperation for mutual benefit must be followed in this global village where countries’ interests and future are interconnected.

Powerful states should reject the Cold War mentality and confrontation between blocks and oppose the practices of seeking absolute security of oneself at the expense of the security of other countries, so as to achieve security of all. Moreover, self-centred, short-sighted and closed-door policies should be rejected outright.WTO rules should be upheld and the comity of nations must support the multilateral trading system so as to build an open world economy.

Lastly, equality, mutual learning, dialogue and inclusiveness between cultures should be championed, so that we overcome cultural misunderstanding, clashes and supremacy through exchanges, mutual learning and coexistence.

The writer is a human rights activist and constitutional lawyer. He can be contacted atsheraz.zaka@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, June 22^nd 2018.