How very Trumpy

As South Korea presses ahead with efforts to bring a large North Korean delegation to the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang next month, it is willingly agreeing to North Korea’s demands.

But Trump, a former businessman who prides himself on being a masterful negotiator, is claiming — and getting — most of the credit for the sudden burst of Olympics-related diplomacy between the two Koreas.

  WaPo

Of course he is.

During a Jan. 4 phone call in which the South Korean leader briefed the American president on the plans for talks with North Korea, Trump asked Moon to publicly give him the credit for creating the environment for the talks, according to people familiar with the conversation.

Of course he did. And how arrogant, not to mention foolish.

In these conversations, Trump calls his counterpart “Jae-in” — an unimaginable informality in Korean business etiquette. Moon calls Trump “Mr. President.”

Totally Trumpy.

Later that night, Trump tweeted that the talks wouldn’t be happening “if I wasn’t firm, strong and willing to commit our total ‘might’ against the North.”

Of course he did.

At a news conference six days later, Moon agreed Trump deserved “huge credit” for the talks.

Wait. Why?

Since taking office last May, Moon has repeatedly made overtures to North Korea but Kim consistently rebuffed them all — until New Year’s Day, that is. Then, just weeks after declaring that his nuclear weapons program was complete, the North Korean leader called for “detente” with the South.

It only makes sense that one would wait to negotiate until one had leverage.

The South Korean government also agreed to combine the two Koreas’ women’s ice hockey teams — against the strong objections of the Southern team — and agreed to send Southern skiers to train on far inferior slopes in the North over the next few weeks.

The concessions to North Korea have angered many South Koreans, with some publicly wondering whether they’re the PyeongChang or the Pyongyang games.

[...]

A Realmeter poll published Thursday found that half of respondents thought the two Koreas should march separately under their own flags, while 40 percent supported this week’s agreement that they should march together under a flag showing a unified Korean Peninsula.

[...]

The Moon administration is trying to build trust with the North in the hope this will lead to talks about its nuclear weapons program.

[...]

That process has gained extra urgency as Trump and his aides have talked increasingly about using military options to teach North Korea the error of its ways.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.