Trump's Scottish Roots
Donald Trump lost touch with his Scottish Roots a long time ago, so we can cut him some slack over the saying 'cauld kale het up' which, literally, means 're-heated cold cabbage'.
In everyday language the term is used to describe something that's not new, exciting or very interesting because at the end of the day it's reheated leftovers, which brings me to the long awaited Singapore summit between Korea's Kim Jong-un and America's celebrity president.
And what it all comes down to at the end of the day is - 'cauld kale het up' or 'where's the beef?' as Americans are fond of saying, because as Richard Lloyd Parry explains in following report from The Times we've been here before:
"Mr Trump essentially paid again for an agreement the US first bought 25 years ago."
Now it may be a deal, of sorts, but whatever it is - it's certainly not art.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/trump-kim-summit-behind-the-backslapping-where-is-the-substance-lskzvmkbr
Trump-Kim summit: Behind the backslapping, where is the substance?
By Richard Lloyd Parry - The Times
The joint statement bears close resemblance to an agreement the two countries signed 25 years ago - Photo Credit KEVIN LIM/AP
One of the problems of trusting to instinct, rather than preparation, as Donald Trump did in the run-up to the Singapore summit, is that you are at risk of being stiffed by people who have done their homework.
To those who follow such matters closely the “very impressive” statement that Mr Trump boasted of yesterday provoked a sense of déjà vu. It resembles a previous document agreed between the US and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1993, which ultimately led nowhere. Mr Trump has essentially paid again for an agreement that the US first bought 25 years ago.
Back then North Korea had no nuclear weapons of its own, just a nuclear power plant, rightly suspected of being a factory for reprocessed plutonium that would eventually be used to make warheads. The 1993 statement agreed that the US would not threaten or use force against the North, and that the Korean peninsula would be kept nuclear-free. Pyongyang agreed to remain in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, making it subject to international inspections.
It was followed by the Agreed Framework, which gave aid to Pyongyang in return for scrapping its bomb-making nuclear reactors. This broke down in the early years of this century after bad faith on both sides.
The document signed by Mr Trump is hailed as an “epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities”, but nothing in it gives reason for such confidence.
The first and second of its four points, a commitment to “new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity”, is nice but hardly constructive. What “peoples” do not desire such things?
The second clause, promising “efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula”, is a gesture towards reassuring Mr Kim that if he gives up his nuclear weapons, he will not suffer the same fate as Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. In itself, it is uselessly vague.
The fourth item, on recovering the bodies of US servicemen who died in the Korean War, was presented by Mr Trump as a new concession. He is evidently unaware that such missions, often performed jointly by US and North Korean troops, have been carried out for years.
The statement contains no mention at all of human rights in North Korea, despite Mr Trump’s previous denunciations of the regime’s cruel record.
The biggest surprise is item three, about denuclearisation. It is merely a reiteration of vague promises made by Mr Kim at his summit in April with President Moon of South Korea. In referring to “complete denuclearisation”, it even falls short of the formula insisted on by successive US administrations, known by the acronym CVID, “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation”.
One of the problems of trusting to instinct, rather than preparation, as Donald Trump did in the run-up to the Singapore summit, is that you are at risk of being stiffed by people who have done their homework.
To those who follow such matters closely the “very impressive” statement that Mr Trump boasted of yesterday provoked a sense of déjà vu. It resembles a previous document agreed between the US and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1993, which ultimately led nowhere. Mr Trump has essentially paid again for an agreement that the US first bought 25 years ago.
Back then North Korea had no nuclear weapons of its own, just a nuclear power plant, rightly suspected of being a factory for reprocessed plutonium that would eventually be used to make warheads. The 1993 statement agreed that the US would not threaten or use force against the North, and that the Korean peninsula would be kept nuclear-free. Pyongyang agreed to remain in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, making it subject to international inspections.
It was followed by the Agreed Framework, which gave aid to Pyongyang in return for scrapping its bomb-making nuclear reactors. This broke down in the early years of this century after bad faith on both sides.
The document signed by Mr Trump is hailed as an “epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities”, but nothing in it gives reason for such confidence.
The first and second of its four points, a commitment to “new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity”, is nice but hardly constructive. What “peoples” do not desire such things?
The second clause, promising “efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula”, is a gesture towards reassuring Mr Kim that if he gives up his nuclear weapons, he will not suffer the same fate as Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. In itself, it is uselessly vague.
The fourth item, on recovering the bodies of US servicemen who died in the Korean War, was presented by Mr Trump as a new concession. He is evidently unaware that such missions, often performed jointly by US and North Korean troops, have been carried out for years.
The statement contains no mention at all of human rights in North Korea, despite Mr Trump’s previous denunciations of the regime’s cruel record.
The biggest surprise is item three, about denuclearisation. It is merely a reiteration of vague promises made by Mr Kim at his summit in April with President Moon of South Korea. In referring to “complete denuclearisation”, it even falls short of the formula insisted on by successive US administrations, known by the acronym CVID, “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation”.
