I will admit it …I do not approve of the private military that privatization has allowed to blossom….and the most notorious of these “armies” is Blackwater, or whatever name they go by these days…..I have blamed them for so many situations but I have seen an article that blames the group for the failing Afghan peace process…..
Pakistan’s diplomatic push to bring the Afghan peace process back on track has paved the way for the resumption of peace talks between the U.S and Afghan Taliban. The question, however, arises here: why were the peace talks canceled if they were to be restarted?
The meeting in Islamabad on Oct. 4 between the U.S. negotiators, led by special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban delegation led by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an important milestone to resume the peace negotiations, which were abruptly called off by U.S. President Donald Trump, apparently after the insurgent group accepted responsibility for attack earlier last month that killed 12 people including one American soldier.
Was this attack the only reason behind the abrupt cancellation last month of an “almost done peace deal” between the U.S. and the Taliban? It is an undeniable fact that peace talks kept on track for the last one year despite the Taliban continued to launch attacks on the Afghan and U.S. soldiers. The other side of the story of calling off the Afghan peace process points to Donald Trump’s covert plan with Blackwater.
As much as I would like to say this is so….I cannot….I have no confirmation of the accusations from this publication….but it does sound like something that could quite possibly be accurate.
Pompeo has tried to blow frresh air into the lungs of the peace process by the release of two POWs…..
“The Taliban have indicated that the release of the two professors is intended as a goodwill gesture, which the United States welcomes,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement about the release of U.S. citizen Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks, who were kidnapped in August 2016.
“We see these developments as hopeful signs that the Afghan war, a terrible and costly conflict that has lasted 40 years, may soon conclude through a political settlement.”
There was an attempt to hold secret talks between the US and the Taleban on the possibility of a peace agreement…..and dear Mr. Trump decided to cancel the meeting…
Many months of tough negotiations between US and Taliban officials came to a draft agreement which some analysts believe was going to be formally finalized as a peace deal this weekend. That will not happen.
President Trump took to Twitter on Saturday announcing that he has “called off peace negotiations” with the Taliban, citing anger over one of the Taliban’s car bombings in Kabul last week.
Trump also revealed that he had planned secret talks with both Afghan President Ghani and Taliban leaders at Camp David, but that in the course of his new decision, he had canceled those meetings as well.
It is unclear, then, whether Trump’s saying he “called off” the negotiations just refers to this weekend, or to the entire process. The US State Department was unclear, and referred questions to the White House.
(antiwar.com)
Everybody scrambled to defend the president’s decision……of course they are spin it to the point that they, Taleban, has been killing Americans and to hold such a meeting with a group that [protected the group that attacked on 9/11.
Now there is the reason…….it was a political decision nothing else.
It would have been used against Trump in the upcoming 2020 election….so all the “reasons” were just fluff…the real reason was a electoral decision.
The spin is to cover the fact that the president is a moron for even considering such a meeting just days before any 9/11 remembrances…..these meetings would appear to be a spit in the faces of those that died on 9/11….just think of the ammo he would give to his opponent in 2020….
First, more sad news another American soldier was killed in Afghanistan……
A Green Beret sergeant from Idaho was killed in action Thursday in Afghanistan, becoming the 15th U.S. combat casualty there this year as the Pentagon prepares to draw down its forces in the country.
Although the Pentagon has not yet officially released the soldier’s name, he was identified Friday as Sgt. 1st Class Dustin Ard on the Facebook page of Idaho State Rep. Rod Furniss
Ard is survived by his pregnant wife and 3-year-old daughter, according to Idaho media.
Ard was killed at the outset of a raid alongside Afghan commandos in Afghanistan’s southern Zabul province, the New York Times reported Friday. A Pentagon spokesman could not confirm those details but said an investigation has been initiated.
Word has leaked out the president has brought together the parties in a secret meeting and hawks are scrmabling to beat down this attempt…..
Nine former U.S. envoys to Afghanistan put their names on an article posted on the Atlantic Council’s blog on Tuesday. The article, titled “U.S.-Taliban Negotiations: How to Avoid Rushing to Failure,” makes the argument that if a major withdrawal of U.S. troops occurred in Afghanistan, the country would fall into a “total civil war.”
The article was posted just a day after U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad announced an agreement was made between the U.S. and Taliban for a withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops over the next five months. The deal is still pending approval from President Trump.
While the point these diplomats make about Afghanistan falling further into civil war after a U.S. withdrawal may be true, this article is full of the usual taking points that has kept the U.S. in this seemingly endless war. Afghanistan has been ravaged by civil war for decades, and while 14,000 U.S. troops maintain a presence in the country today, almost daily violence still occurs.
Many months of tough negotiations between US and Taliban officials came to a draft agreement which some analysts believe was going to be formally finalized as a peace deal this weekend. That will not happen.
President Trump took to Twitter on Saturday announcing that he has “called off peace negotiations” with the Taliban, citing anger over one of the Taliban’s car bombings in Kabul last week.
(antiwar.com)
Lobbyists and war hawks have a great sway over our foreign policy….the only way to go now is more war, more destruction and more deaths.
I think we need a “peace race” (post to come)…….this country has had enough war and killing….time to “give peace a chance”.
The US and the Taleban in Afghanistan have been working on a peace deal that would see US troops out of the country…..it has been an up and down process from close no cigar to maybe to…….
It seems the news yesterday was good news indeed……
Sources within Doha say that the most recent round of talks between the US and Taliban have worked out a peace deal for Afghanistan. The plan is to announce it formally in a few days, giving the US time to inform the Afghan government on what’s been decided.
Details aren’t being made public so far, but US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is heading to Kabul to brief the government there, and will subsequently travel to Brussels to inform NATO about what is going on.
Despite the indications this is a done deal, President Trump is still being very coy, saying that as far as he is concerned there is “no timeline” for ending the Afghan War, and that he is “in no rush.”
Trump has been publicly of two minds on Afghanistan for a long time, however, conceding that the war is a waste and should be ended while at the same time saying he’s also perfectly fine with America’s longest war dragging on even longer.
(antiwar.com)
Announcement of pact will be made in a few days.
With the announcement the Taleban had one of their own…..
Taliban commanders anonymously quoted in the press are claiming that their reported peace deal with the US would not require them to stop carrying out attacks on he Afghan government, but would require the US to stop coming to the aid of the Ghani government.
Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated the treated, says this is not true, and that the US would defend the Afghan forces even after any peace deal, and that the future would be decided in intra-Afghan negotiations.
(antiwar.com)
So we have a possible peace deal in Afghanistan between the Taleban and the US and nothing much would change….do I have this about right?
As a student of conflict resolution would someone explain to me how this is a success…..
Is this just a way to head off the antiwar rhetoric in the coming election?
Since the early days of the Trump admin we have been promised the “deal of the century” to solve the conundrum of the Palestine/Israel situation……and we wait.
Well it is back….the media has been teasing the viewer with a promise of the release of the “Deal”…..
The master of this “solution” is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner….and he has been in the Middle East meeting with the players of the saga as a precursor to the release of the “Deal of the Century”….at least that is what the admin and the media would have us believe.
According to reports the release is just a mere days away……and then the push back started….
President Donald Trump said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “may be right” in his raw assessment of the administration’s Middle East peace plan.
Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump responded to a Washington Post report that Pompeo had described the administration’s plan for lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians arguably “unexecutable.” Pompeo also said that the plan — which is being devised by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former Trump lawyer Jason Greenblatt — “may be rejected” and that critics would call it “not particularly original,” the Post reported based on a recording of Pompeo’s comments.
Israel will be the only winner in any deal from these biased players…..all the major deal makers are Jewish…..
But my favorite is the d/bag we have at the State Dept, Pompeo……
Facing some pessimism on the Israel peace process since his own comments were published Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is feverishly walking back what he said, to the point where he is attacking others who echoed his own comments.
That the US peace plan is going to be deliberately biased in favor of Israel is no secret, and has been one of the few things known about it since the White House confirmed this in early February, saying the US plan would be “proudly” in favor of Israel.
Does anyone think that anything fromDC these days will have anybody’s interests other than Israel?
As the US government has admitted, economic investment in Palestine will be ineffective without a political solution to the conflict. Given their lack of information on the US vision, Europeans whom the White House invites to the economic workshop are effectively being asked to invest in a project that has no clearly defined end goal. This initiative could even entrench a one-state reality of unequal rights for Palestinians under indefinite occupation, a situation that will increasingly resemble apartheid.
Palestinians will reject this “Deal”….and as they should…..Israel has gotten all the favored status for too long….any debt the West owes Israel has long been paid in full….they need to step into the 21st century and act like a responsible civilized nation.
This is not a deal for the two people but rather a deal that would allow Israel to eradicate the Palestinian identity.
This could be seen as 70+ years of failures…..from the proposals of Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948 to the promises of peace from Donald Trump……the closest we came to an end was in 1978 Camp David Accords….and then we had an election that brought a warmonger to the White House and the downhill slide began and has only picked up speed in the years after.
We have been promised to hear a plan from Kushner, the leader of Trump’s ME peace team, for years….the promise is that we will finally hear this plan sometime this month.
Personally, I feel that this plan will be nothing more than a sideshow to help change the dialog of the day……
After two years of drum-rolling, Donald Trump’s “ultimate deal” for Israelis and Palestinians is about to enter what its architects claim is the pre-launch phase.
The US president has said the peace plan drawn up by his team – two former personal lawyers and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner – will be ready to unveil by the end of January.
Yet despite the anticipation surrounding Trump’s proposals for resolving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, a more crucial plan for the region is already being implemented on the ground: an attempt to strengthen Israel’s hand while weakening that of the Palestinians.
Sorry being a Jew does not necessarily qualify one to be the master of peace in the Middle East…..but that aside any plan (if one actually makes an appearance) will need Congress before anything…..
In recent days, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, has revealed certain key aspects of the long-touted White House Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that he and other senior administration officials say they will launch sometime after the April 9 elections in Israel. In normal times, these would be headlines. But America is currently so consumed with the Mueller investigation and the president’s declaration of a national emergency to fund his border wall that it is hard to find the bandwidth to discuss anything else.
The plan is said to be based on four principles—freedom, respect, security, and opportunity—with one key goal being “developing infrastructure” for “tremendous growth in … the West Bank and Gaza.”
The price tag for these investments, meanwhile, is reported to be in the tens of billions of dollars—a substantial sum, particularly for an administration that has slashed U.S. foreign assistance across the board and especially to the Palestinians. No doubt this is why Kushner and other senior administration officials are currently touring the Arab Gulf states: not just to “share … some of the details … especially on the economic vision” with leaders there, as Kushner described, but to ask them to foot most if not all of the bill.
Keep in mind that the Trump machine has a long record of failures……
Many American presidents have blundered in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, but Donald Trump’s personal involvement in the region has been particularly disastrous. President Eisenhower introduced the CIA to the world of covert action, when he ordered the overthrow of the legitimate government of Iran in 1953. President Reagan endorsed a U.S. troop presence in Lebanon in 1982 in order to pull Israeli chestnuts out of the fire there due to their war crimes in Beirut, offering proof to the Arab nations of Washington’s one-sided support for Israel. President George H.W. Bush went ahead with Desert Storm in 1991 although Soviet President Gorbachev had gained a commitment from Saddam Hussein to withdraw his forces from Kuwait. Worst of all, President George W. Bush used phony intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq in 2003 that has created sixteen years of disarray throughout the region.
The roll out (if there is one) will be massive and taunted as “peace in our time” sort of thing…..I predict it will be yet another failed attempt at peace for this region.
The only peace plan is one the both sides keep their dignity and respect for the opponent….I do not see that happening anytime soon…..
Our Dear Supreme Leader has put his son-in-law in charge of finding a peace deal for the Middle East…….and what about this dude makes him qualified for such a task? Well he is Jewish……(thinking….thinking)……that is about it.
After two years we are still waiting for this miraculous thing that has eluded all qualified people….a peace plan for the Middle East…..there have been many plans and none have come to fruition….why? Israel is a stumbling block….NO it is not the unarmed protesters that Israel kills daily…it is the attitude of the Israeli government and their search to erase the Palestinian bloodline from the region.
So what would a devout Jew actually bring to the table that would assure peace and civil rights for all concerned?
That my friends is a good goddamn question!
There are as many situations in the Middle East as there are grains of sand…..what is driving the situation in the Middle East?
Politics in the Middle East have long been as fluid as the sands which make up much of the region. From the crusades to colonialism to the present, many political players have vied for power and found at best only temporary success. Since the discovery of oil in the region in the early twentieth century, politics have become mixed with business; however, other considerations have more recently come into play such as extremism, revolution, and non-state actors. Couple these with the long-standing animosity between major regional powers such as Iran, Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia and the Middle East seems like a political powder keg waiting to explode. In addition, there has been almost constant intervention by foreign countries, most notably the United States. Together all these events have turned the politics of the region into one of the world’s most difficult jigsaw puzzles. Learn more about the most pivotal issues currently embroiling the region–although this is by no means an exhaustive list–as well as their root causes and possible solutions.
The plan would be for Israel to keep its settlements, though no longer expanding isolated outposts. Moreover, the plan would mandate Israel evacuate any outposts which are illegal under Israeli law. That’s a big deal, because Israel has recently changed its own laws to facilitate retroactively legalizing a lot of these outposts.
The Palestinian capital would be in East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians would be given “most of the Arab neighborhoods” there. Some areas would also be jointly run by Jordan and Palestine.
The White House is denying that this report is true at all, saying all speculation on the peace plan is inaccurate, and declining to offer any specifics. The US has long promised to make such a plan publicly available, but has yet to do so.
(antiwar.com)
FOX News (the Trump information network) on 10 February said that the Trump Peace Plan was finished and would be rolled out……
The Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan is finished and President Trump has been briefed on its contents, two senior administration officials told Fox News on Sunday.
The final draft of the administration’s “Deal of the Century” is 175 to 200 pages long — and fewer than five people have access to the complete document, sources told Fox News.
“The plan is done… [the president] is happy with the parameters of the deal,” a senior administration official said.
Officials said that the plan is unlikely to be released before upcoming Israeli elections on April 9. “We are not going to do anything that threatens Israel’s security,” a senior administration official said
(FOX News)
Wait! WE are postponing the release of the plan because of a foreign election, right? What part of that is not showing allegiance to a foreign power? And a Congresswoman gets in trouble for saying the truth…..you have lost all hope for a free democracy now….you morons!
There is an option being discussed to the two state solution….
There has been more talk recently from the Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians about the option of a confederation as an alternative to the two-state solution in light of the political impasse reached between Ramallah and Tel Aviv. So what are the true positions of the three governments on this option, the chances of this being achieved on the ground, the official reactions of these countries, and public opinion on the matter?
Such a confederation aims to establish one state for two peoples after the Palestinian state is established on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. This single state will have two capitals — Jerusalem for the Palestinians and Amman for the Jordanians — as well as a central judicial authority and joint armed forces led by the Jordanian monarch. It will also include a central council of ministers and parliament elected by both nations, while both will be allowed to move freely between the two areas.
After 18 years of constant war and multiple deployments the US is looking at the peace process taking shape…..
The US gets bad press worldwide…..the American propaganda machine we call the MSM does not pile on….but the news is not good for America…..like the number of civilian deaths……
The report concluded that both an increase in suicide attacks, mainly from ISIS, and a sharp increase in US airstrikes were driving the record deaths, with over 1,000 casualties just from US air operations.
The Taliban were blamed for the largest number of civilian casualties, at 37%, which is in keeping with UN reports of the past. The Afghan government, US, and NATO were blamed for 24%, and ISIS was blamed for a further 20%. This is a huge number of ISIS killings given how comparatively small the group is.
The UN said a particularly concerning fact was that the civilian casualties from US airstrikes were overwhelmingly women and children. This, however, should be unsurprising, as the US tends to define adult men in Afghanistan as “suspects” or “militants” simply by virtue of being in a strike.
(antiwar.com)
With those numbers rising the parties involved are meeting and discussing an end to the hostilities……
18+ years into the US war in Afghanistan, they’ve gone from the Taliban denying negotiations were even taking place, to confirming they are. Progress is now being confirmed by both sides, with a basic framework of a war-ending deal in place.
That deal, specifics not-withstanding, are that the US would withdraw all troops from Afghanistan, and the Taliban would ensure that neither al-Qaeda nor ISIS could operate inside of the country in the future.
Having Mullah Baradar and US negotiator head Zalmay Khalilzad sitting across the table from one another only underscores how serious the talks are getting, and this latest round of talks is expected to continue hammering out specific details.
(antiwar.com)
I read dissertation papers that grad students submit and this one covers the “Long War” in Afghanistan and the possibility of a peaceful settlement…..
During the last week of January, the news was awash with stories covering the current administration’s ostensibly unprecedented progress with Special Envoy Khalilzad’s recent talks with the Taliban and their Pakistani sponsors in Qatar. In a statement that the U.S. Embassy Kabul released on the last Monday in January, Khalilzad stated that the peace talks had made progress on important issues and that the negotiators had agreed on a framework for further talks in February. In the eighteenth year of a long and stalemated war, there are reasons to be sanguine about these developments, to some degree, simply because this seems to have been the most talk about peace among the belligerents yet in this long hard war. And Mr. Khalilzad is indeed one of the best people to be the U.S. envoy leading the talks given his Afghan origins and years of experience as ambassador in Afghanistan and Iraq
However, there are also reasons for much caution and some alarm about the current progress and the potential for peace in Afghanistan since the deliberations and decisions about many previously intractable issues still require prudence and patience. These details may potentially augur the gravest consequences for Afghanistan, its neighbors, and the U.S. Several things of great importance have yet to be worked out. There is still much uncertainty in what outcomes these talks will result in, and looming yet elusive peace also brings up questions and concerns about the Taliban’s and their sponsor’s true intentions.
This could be good news….or it could be just a lull in a continuing situation….
light at the end of an excruciatingly long tunnel, the prospect of American withdrawal from Afghanistan now seems to glimmer ahead. Several rounds of negotiation in Russia, Qatar, and elsewhere have produced the outlines of an agreement. Details are unknown, but by all accounts, the accord will be based around a simple deal: the United States pulls its troops out and the Taliban pledges to never again host terror groups.
This would be a most un-American peace deal. Rather than a declaration of victory, it would be a reluctant acceptance of stubborn facts on the ground. Afghans repelled British invaders in the 19th century and Soviet invaders in the 20th. For nearly two decades they have held the United States at bay. By leaving Afghanistan to its fate, we would be admitting failure. This horrifies many in Washington. Americans fervently embrace the illusion that their country can succeed at anything — including crushing mountain fighters thousands of miles away who believe they are patriots resisting a foreigner invader.
I wish I could see this as a good thing for the people of Afghanistan….but I cannot….the Taleban when returned to power will revert to their extreme shelf…..a restrictive form of Islam will once again rule the land….
Afghanistan has another worry….the hostilities between India and Pakistan…..there is a possibility that hostilities could spill over into Afghanistan….
Fearing a dangerous spillover impacts from increased tensions between India and Pakistan, war-ravaged Afghanistan has advised its nuclear-armed neighbors to exercise the utmost restraint.
The only good thing is that American troops will come home and get the rest they richly deserve.
Let’s say that a peace plan is negotiated……what does that mean to US troops?
Ongoing US-Taliban peace negotiations, designed to end the 18-year Afghan War, has a new proposal, with the Pentagon having finally offered a formal plan for withdrawing US forces from Afghanistan.
As with the usual Pentagon plans, there seems to be reticence toward actually doing this in a timely fashion. The plan reportedly would have half of the 14,000 US troops leaves Afghanistan within a matter of months, but then the rest would stay for as long as five years.
And that might be a tough sell for the Taliban. After resisting a US occupation for 18 years, the Taliban’s demand is to get the US out of the country, and while the logistics of that might take awhile, five years is a very long time.
If anything, such a long time is likely to raise fears that the Pentagon is dragging its feet specifically to give officials time to change their minds and dishonor the deal, and keeping thousands of troops inside Afghanistan means Trump, or his successor, could end up resuming the war.
(antiwar.com)
US troops are the key to any peace deal with the Taleban…..
Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for Taliban’s political office in Qatar, told reporters in Qatar that the war will come to an end in the country and the Taliban fighters will join the ranks of the Afghan army if the two sides sealed an agreement on the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.
He said talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government is an internal issue and that Taliban is currently carrying out talks with the US about troop withdrawal.
“When the occupation is ended, there is a full withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and there is an Afghan-inclusive Islamic government in the country, I think there is no need for any military operation and war. So, there will be a sustainable peace in the country and all the military people and our people, they will be included in a national army,” said Shaheen.
There have been many examples of country’s seeking reparations for wrongs done to them…the Armenians are looking to Turkey for reparations…..Blacks in the South are seeking them…..on and on……but the one that I find the most ludicrous is what Israel is looking to do……. Israel is trying to get reparations for wrongs done to them in the distant past…..reparations if you will……
Reparations? Just what the Hell?
1. Theact or process of makingamendsfor a wrong.
2. Somethingdone or moneypaid to makeamends or compensatefor a wrong.
3. reparationsCompensation or remuneration, as fordamage or economicloss,requiredfrom a nationdefeated in war.
Israel is seeking hundreds of billions of dollars in compensation from Middle Eastern countries where Jewish people fled or were expelled from.
The Jewish state has hired an unnamed international accounting company to estimate the damages it should seek per an expected US peace plan, according to a Hahadashot TV report.
Claims for assets in Iraq, Morocco, Syria, Egypt, Iran and Yemen are expected to reach $200 billion.
How will they accomplish this? They cannot use the international courts for they do not accept their jurisdiction…..then how will they hope to accomplish their goals….they have very little good will in the world…just what would make the nations bow to the Israeli demands?
If the world recognizes Israel’s claims then the world should recognize the claims made by Palestinians.
If the US plan goes into effect…then the Palestinians will have a argument worth hearing…..what plan?
The plan would be for Israel to keep its settlements, though no longer expanding isolated outposts. Moreover, the plan would mandate Israel evacuate any outposts which are illegal under Israeli law. That’s a big deal, because Israel has recently changed its own laws to facilitate retroactively legalizing a lot of these outposts.
The Palestinian capital would be in East Jerusalem, and the Palestinians would be given “most of the Arab neighborhoods” there. Some areas would also be jointly run by Jordan and Palestine.
As usual the situation with North Korea is not very newsworthy these days….we have a SCOTUS duel, a op-ed that has the Dear Leader batcrap pissed and then there is the probes this and the probes that….and in all the drama the situation with North Korea soldiers on……
Since the MSM wants to sweep most of it under the rug (would that be a Persian rug? Persia? Ain’t that Iran?)…….
It seems that Kim wants a declaration of peace for the Korean Peninsula and Trump’s boyz are waffling……
The State Department said on Wednesday that the US position is that “denuclearization has to take place before we get to other parts.” The administration has repeatedly said they believe Korean denuclearization will take years, and that they want “progress” before the 2020 election.
The Korean War began in 1950, and 68 years later, there has never been a formal peace treaty ending the conflict. North Korea has been seeking a peace treaty for decades, with the US always resisting such a deal.
(antiwar.com)
Another summit is coming to a screen near you……mind you what Barry Goldwater said about a “summit”…..”only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that never takes place”…..could that be accurate in this case?
The commitment to denuclearize is a major announcement, as US officials have been increasingly dubious about that, and complaining about the lack of quick progress. North Korean officials say Kim is frustrated by the doubts expressed in the international community about his will to preemptively denuclearize. He told Chung that he feels the good faith moves made by North Korea should be reciprocated.
(antiwar.com)
The trade war that Our Dear Leader has started with China has consequences……many have said the China has been a big help getting NK to the negotiating table….but for how much longer?
While the US has been pushing for diplomatic progress with North Korea to be met with even more restrict sanctions and restrictions, other countries have called for the UN to ease them. The US has blocked that, so far, but it isn’t stopping nations like China unilaterally easing limits on trade.
China has long been North Korea’s main trading partner, and while that trade ground to a halt earlier this year, a lot of it shows signs of picking up. Reports have China reopening coal trade, restarting frozen construction projects, and again allowing tourists into Pyongyang.
Analysts are suggesting that this “undercuts” US calls to keep escalating sanctions on North Korea, though there is also a case to be made that China is trying to ensure that it retains a major seat at the table if North Korea suddenly becomes an opened market with a lot of trade business.
(antiwar.com)
How much longer will China assist the process with this trade war looming large?
As one can see here is more going on on the Korean Peninsula than we are being told…..
A closing thought–President Trump tweeted to thank North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for his “unwavering faith,” promising that the two leaders would “get it done together.” This came after Wednesday’s reports that Kim, despite frustration at the diplomatic process, remains confident in Trump’s ability to progress things personally.
