Ron Paul Liberty Report - Weekly Update --- Trump/Kim Meeting Shows Value of Policy Over Politics
Aired: 2018-06-11
Duration: 03:48


=== Historic Summits Paved Peace (03:26) ===

[00:00:03]  Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the weekly report.
[00:00:08]  When President Reagan met with Gorbachev in Iceland on October 11, 1987, it helped put into motion events that would dramatically change the global system.
[00:00:22]  A line of communication was fully opened with an enemy of decades and substantive issues were on the table.
[00:00:29]  Though the summit was initially reported as a failure with the two sides unable to sign a final agreement, history now shows us that it was actually a great success that paved the way to the eventual end of the Cold War and a reduction in the threat of a nuclear war.
[00:00:47]  A year later, Gorbachev and Reagan met in Washington to continue the dialogue that had been started and the rest is history.
[00:00:55]  Success began as a failure.
[00:00:59]  We are now facing a similar situation with President Trump's historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore.
[00:01:08]  As with Reagan-Gorbachev meetings, detractors on all sides seem determined to undermine and belittle the opening of a door to diplomacy and peace.
[00:01:19]  The neocons demand that North Korea give up all its bargaining chips up front in return for vague promises of better relations with the U.S.
[00:01:29]  Yeah, in the post-Libya era, no serious person would jump at such an offer.
[00:01:35]  Their biggest fear is that peace may break out, and they are doing everything to prevent that from happening.
[00:01:42]  Conflict is their livelihood.
[00:01:44]  I also find it disheartening that many Democrat opponents of President Trump, who rightly cheered President Obama's effort to reach a deal with Iran, are now condemning Trump for opening the door to diplomacy with North Korea.
[00:01:58]  Did they genuinely support President Obama's diplomatic efforts with Iran, or did they just prefer the person who happened to occupy the Oval Office at that time?
[00:02:10]  The issue is about policy versus politics, and I am afraid too many Americans of all political stripes are confusing the two.
[00:02:19]  Many Americans, it seems, would prefer that we continue down the path to a potentially nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula because they do not like the current U.S. president.
[00:02:29]  Does that make any sense?
[00:02:31]  Has politics come to overrule our common sense to the point we would go against our own interests and even our own lives?
[00:02:40]  Let's hope not.
[00:02:43]  The truth is, talking is always better than threatening.
[00:02:48]  Just like trading is always better than sanctioning.
[00:02:51]  Detractors on both sides miss the point while they desperately try to make political points.
[00:02:58]  The current thaw with North Korea began with that country's participation in the Olympic Games in South Korea.
[00:03:06]  From that point, North and South Korea came to see each other as neighbors rather than enemies.
[00:03:12]  That process will continue regardless of what comes from the Trump-Kim summit, and it is a process we should cheer.
[00:03:21]  Hopefully, this historic Trump-Kim meeting is the beginning of a dialogue that will continue to dial back the tensions.

=== Historic Olympic Truce (00:18) ===

[00:03:29]  Hopefully, we can soon remove the 30,000 U.S. troops that have been stationed in South Korea for seven decades.
[00:03:37]  One thing Washington must do, however, stay out of the way as much as possible so as to allow the two Koreas to continue their peace process.