About the Author
Dennis P. Halpin
Dennis P. Halpin, a former Foreign Service Officer and senior Congressional staff, is a consultant on Asian issues.
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Opinion Why does Trump think it would be an “honor” to meet Kim Jong Un?The President's defense of Kim as a "smart cookie" shows his total ignorance of reality President Trump’s latest remarks on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, quite at variance with previous, less complimentary nicknames such as “bad dude,” have caused confusion among America’s allies, including in Seoul and Tokyo. The idiomatic phrase which the American president used in remarks to CBS, that Kim Jong Un is “a smart cookie,” had some foreign officials scrambling for dictionaries. This all has caused an impression of some degree of confusion in the White House, and by our President himself, as to who North Korean Kim Jong Un is and what he and his family represents. © Korea Risk Group. All rights reserved. |