Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have engaged in an increasingly threatening feud.
One of the jobs of the President of the United States is to maintain stable foreign relations with other nations across the globe. While this has not always been achieved due to widespread conflict and war, these exceptions do not diminish the essential presidential responsibility to communicate with other world leaders respectfully in order to keep Americans safe and prevent global conflict. However, since his inauguration, Donald Trump P’00 has abused his powerful platform by constantly threatening and insulting North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-un.
While there have been numerous instances on Twitter in which Trump threatened, insulted, or baited Kim, there are two tweets in particular that portray Trump’s instability and irresponsibility with regard to foreign relations. First, he called Kim “short and fat.” While this may seem like a juvenile and relatively trivial insult, it is important to note that Kim’s past consists of unreliability and rash decision making. Clearly, an unstable dictator is not the appropriate target for childish remarks – we cannot be sure of how he will react to those insults, so it is far too risky for Trump to be tweeting them. Additionally, Trump tweeted that he has a “much bigger and more powerful” nuclear button than Kim. This tweet is undeniably worse than the previous one because the president is practically challenging Kim to prove him wrong. Again, these statements would normally be taken as immature, juvenile comments in other scenarios. But, between two notoriously untrustworthy and temperamental world leaders, tweets such as this one are simply unacceptable. They cause widespread fear of retaliation and further inflate Trump’s already massive ego.
This widespread fear of retaliation is also completely justified. Since the 1970s, North Korea has been developing and testing its nuclear missile program. Particularly over the past two years, Korea has conducted countless missile tests to evaluate their maximum distance capabilities; each time, they seem to be going farther and farther. Despite some failed tests and short-distance missiles, North Korea successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, known as Hwasong-15, which is capable of reaching all of the continental U.S. Though their available quantity of these missiles is uncertain, the danger that a single intercontinental ballistic missile poses to millions of Americans, especially denser populations in large cities, is much too real and frightening for Trump to be making daring threats on Twitter.
However, Trump has not only been threatening Kim on Twitter, but he has also threatened him during interviews. For example, in August of 2017, he said that “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Though one might claim that he was just defending Americans, he really intended to poke fun at Mr. Kim and continue their feud. Ultimately, his phrasing earned him massive amounts of controversy because of how dangerous they are to our rocky relationship with North Korea. “Fire and fury like the world has never seen” implies that the U.S. would use new, extremely violent tactics to retaliate against Korea, which is particularly scary considering the horrific acts of war we have already seen. While this is most likely a relatively empty threat, as the “leader of the free world,” Trump’s words carry power and influence. These comments abuse that power and degrade the legitimacy of the presidency.
If Trump continues this pattern of childish competitiveness and egotism, he may severely endanger the American people. This behavior has no place on the presidential Twitter or during interviews, especially when dealing with North Korea. His use of this language further illustrates his dire lack of political experience and understanding. To preserve international relations and keep American citizens from harm, Trump must discontinue his use of immature, threatening rhetoric toward Kim and other world leaders.
