Readers React: Give Trump credit on North Korea — even though he’s unfit for office

To the editor: Peace may be coming to the Korean Peninsula. Until recently, a peace treaty between South and North Korea seemed impossible. (“As North Korea offers to give up its nuclear arms, the Trump administration insists it’s not ‘starry-eyed,’” April 29)

I am elated by this development, which can be attributed primarily to the newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has strenuously campaigned for peace between the two countries.

And if President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un can bring about peace between the U.S. and North Korea, I will have to give them credit even though Kim is a ruthless killer and Trump an inveterate con artist or worse.

I am reminded that it was Richard Nixon, the first president to resign from office over possibly criminal behavior, and Mao Zedong, the Chinese dictator responsible for millions of deaths, who opened diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China.

Clive Leeman, Ojai

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To the editor: Seoul is reacting to the fact that the biggest threat to South Korea is Trump’s “fire and fury” mentality, not North Korea.

Seoul is making peace overtures to Pyongyang because Washington has consistently refused to talk peace, preferring war games that simulate an attack on the north.

In 1994, President Clinton promised light-water reactors so that North Korea would abandon nuclear weapons development but undertook no concrete efforts to keep his promise. Re-nuclearization was the result.

Michael Haas, Los Angeles

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To the editor: While it is clear that the Los Angeles Times cannot bear giving Trump credit for anything positive, your print headline, “Taking credit for a nudge to Kim,” is simply not how you would have headlined the potential reconciliation of South and North Korea had it been any other president in the last 60-plus years.

This is a diplomatic coup, something no other president has been able to achieve. How it will end — we can only hope in negotiated peace — is still unknown.

Trump may be despicable in so many ways, but give credit where credit is due. At least try to look unbiased.

Janine Smylie, Colton

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