Ron Paul Liberty Report - Weekly Update --- Who to Believe on Washington’s Korea Policy, Tillerson or Trump?
Aired: 2017-12-18
Duration: 04:31


=== Confusing Signals (04:22) ===

[00:00:09]  Hello everybody, thank you for tuning in to the weekly report.
[00:00:13]  President Trump has often said that his foreign policy objective was to keep his enemies guessing.
[00:00:20]  If that's the goal, you could say that he's doing a good job.
[00:00:24]  The problem is, who does he think his enemies are because the American people are often left guessing as well?
[00:00:32]  U.S. policy toward North Korea last week is a good example of how the Trump administration is wittingly or unwittingly sowing confusion among friend and foe alike.
[00:00:46]  In what looked like a breakthrough, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced last Tuesday that the U.S. would be willing to sit down and talk with North Korea without preconditions.
[00:01:00]  Previously, the U.S. had demanded that North Korea agree to end its nuclear weapons and missiles program before Washington was willing to sit down to formal talks.
[00:01:13]  The State Department's shift toward actual diplomacy with North Korea was quickly squashed, however, when the White House announced that its position on North Korea had not changed.
[00:01:27]  It seemed that the State Department and White House were each pursuing different foreign policies on the Korea issue.
[00:01:36]  The White House even appeared to belittle Tillerson's attempt at diplomacy, releasing a statement on Wednesday that talks with North Korea would be pointless.
[00:01:47]  No wonder speculation persists that Tillerson is on his way out as Secretary of State.
[00:01:55]  Then, on Friday, Secretary Tillerson seemed to be doing a U-turn on his own policy, announcing at a U.N. Security Council meeting that a sustained cessation of North Korea's threatening behavior must precede any negotiations with the United States.
[00:02:14]  North Korea must earn its way back to the table, he said.
[00:02:18]  So after just three days, the offer of unconditioned talks with North Korea had been put on and then removed from the table.
[00:02:28]  There is more than a little hypocrisy in U.S. demands that North Korea cease its threatening behavior.
[00:02:37]  Just this month, the U.S. and South Korea launched yet another joint military exercise targeting North Korea.
[00:02:45]  Some 12,000 military personnel and 230 aircraft, including stealth fighters, participated in the massive war games.
[00:02:55]  Does anyone think this is not meant to be threatening to North Korea?
[00:03:01]  It's a shame that the Hawks in the administration continue to dominate.
[00:03:07]  It seems pretty responsible to open talks with North Korea after a period of good faith gestures between Washington and Poign.
[00:03:17]  Why not agree on no U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises for six months in exchange for no North Korean missile launches for the same period and then agree to a meeting on neutral ground?
[00:03:32]  How could it possibly hurt, particularly considering the alternative?
[00:03:36]  The Hawks continued to talk up a U.S. strike against North Korea.
[00:03:41]  Senator Lindsey Graham seemed pleased when he announced that there was a 70% chance that the U.S. would attack North Korea if it detonated another nuclear weapon.
[00:03:54]  Does he realize how many people will die?
[00:03:57]  Does he care?
[00:04:01]  Defense Secretary James Mattis seems skeptical about neocon hysteria, declaring that the North Korean missile program does not pose a capable threat to the United States.
[00:04:14]  With that in mind, we can only hope that President Trump will encourage Tillerson to do another about face and return to the idea of talks without preconditions.
[00:04:29]  Strategic ambiguity is one thing.