Yet those are the rough equivalents of the demands the Trump administration is making on North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and China — simultaneously. Trump and his aides can’t imagine the United States surrendering on important issues of sovereignty, but they expect other countries to do so. Now, I am not drawing any moral equivalence between the United States and these dictatorships — as Trump himself does. Kim Jong Un thinks he needs nuclear weapons to avert a U.S. invasion or unification on South Korea’s terms. Sooner or later, Trump needs to figure out that he isn’t going to simply bluff powerful adversaries into surrender.

Source: Washington Post May 22, 2019 13:39 UTC