Trump's Timeline Game

The first and most important of President Trump's timelines is connected with the mid term elections. He wants as many headlines as he can get before that. It's been apparent from the on again, off again schedule for negotiations with North Korea that this is what has dominated his thinking all along. This imminent trip of Secretary Pompeo to Pyongyang is consistent with the original anticipated schedule of developments expected by expert observers in South Korea for months. The present rush by Secretary Pompeo to get to North Korea surprised some, but is part of a consistent pattern related to the midterms.

But like a child trying to disguise his patent manipulation, Trump said he did not want to “play the time game."

The second time game he's playing is with the sanctions on North Korea. Whatever the administration says, it knows that North Korea urgently wants to open up to international trade, and engage in new industrial development and infrastructure projects with South Korean corporations. At the same time there is an entrenched school of thought within the executive branch and this administration, that the sanctions should be maintained indefinitely and that North Korea will collapse. These are the same people who have been advocating strategic patience for years, representing the interests of defense contractors, ballistic missile defense manufacturers, professional think tanks, and intelligence contractors who will have increased political difficulties or lose revenue streams without a perpetual enemy in North Korea. The posture that time is not an issue on the US side increases pressure on North Korea which has numerous economic projects on hold waiting to generate foreign exchange. Simultaneously, it undermines the current progressive administration in South Korea which the US administration and entrenched US national security interests not so secretly despise.

The third time game is with China, and Chinese competition economically, internationally, and militarily, in which the dispute with North Korea is just a chess piece. China won't negotiate the trade dispute and is waiting for Trump's political posture to deteriorate further, particularly after the midterms, before getting more seriously engaged. Meanwhile, they support tourism and whatever marginal commerce that can take place under the radar with North Korea without blatantly violating the sanctions. While economic analysts think China's economic position will deteriorate more quickly than that of the US, the Chinese believe Trump's political situation will worsen more quickly than their economic position.