This is a major turning point in the North Korea "negotiations."
Recall that Trump canceled the summit negotiations six weeks ago:
** 25-May-18 World View -- North Korea suffers diplomatic defeat as Trump cancels summit
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e180525
One of the things that triggered Trump's cancelation was continued
criticism of and contempt for Trump in the NK media. Since the
cancelation, the NK media have been consistently "nice" to Trump and
the US.
So today's criticism is extremely significant because it's the first
hostile comment in the NK media since the cancellation. In a sense it
represents NK's first real counter-response to Trump's cancellation.
One thing that's strange about NK's statement today is that it came a
few hours after Pompeo had said the meetings had gone well, and there
was no need to make this statement today. I've said in the past that
if Kim tried to really denuclearize, then he'd be shot and killed by
his own generals. The denuclearization negotiations must have, at the
very least, caused bitter disagreements in NK's leadership, much like
what's happening in London with Brexit or in Berlin over migration.
So today's statement, when it wasn't even necessary, is a sign that
the faction opposing the negotiations has just gained the upper hand.
This is probably the real significance of today's statement, and it
means an end to current track of negotiations.
The South Korean's must have seen this coming, because they've been
urging the US to soften its demands on NK. This would have mean
making concessions without any denuclearization steps by NK, so it had
to be rejected, but this is the result.
There's one more thing that has to be remember: This is still a
generational Crisis era, where nationalism and xenophobia are at the
highest points. So it wouldn't take much to reach a tipping point for
the North Koreans to abandon the negotiations.
(People always point to the East-West Germany reunification talks in
1991 as examples that could be followed. But that example is
completely irrelevant, since those talks occurred during a
generational Unraveling era, where nationalism and xenophobia are at
the lowest points.)
The other thing that's going on, as I pointed out in my 7/6 World View
article is that the Chinese are furious about the tariffs. The
Chinese are liars and cheaters and criminals, but like the Nazis, they
consider themselves to be the Master Race who have the right to lie
and cheat and extort to get whatever they want, because they have such
total contempt for the West. The statement that NK issued today may
have been encouraged by the Chinese, because of their fury over the
tariffs.
I also pointed out that there's an analogy with the sanctions imposed
on Japan on July 24, 1941, which infuriated the Japanese and motivated
the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7. I can't prove this, of course,
but with nationalism and xenophobia at their peaks, I have the feeling
that a similar dynamic is going on with China and North Korea towards
America and the West.
As for what happens next, I can think of only one thing that Trump can
do to kick the can down the road a bit further, and that's to announce
that Pompeo is being replaced as NK negotiator by someone else.
However, I don't see how that could gain more than few days, since
we're demanding that NK meet its commitments to denuclearization, and
NK leadership is now apparently being controlled by an
anti-denuclearization faction.