MIKE POMPEO/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/VIETNAM: “This week’s second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un takes place in a highly symbolic location: Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. For the Trump administration, the venue appears to be intended as a symbol of free-market victory: Vietnam’s economy has thrived as it has opened to the world, and it is seen as a potential lure for North Korea, which might develop similarly through reform and openness. On a trip to Hanoi in July last year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Kim to replicate Vietnam’s economic ‘miracle.’ ‘In light of the once unimaginable prosperity and partnership we have with Vietnam today,’ Pompeo announced, ‘I have a message for Chairman Kim Jong Un: President Trump believes your country can replicate this path. It’s yours if you’ll seize the moment.’ Vietnam is certainly a model for North Korea—but if you understand North Korea’s history, you realize it’s anything but the lure the Trump administration seems to think. Seen from the perspective of the Kim regime, the Vietnam story offers an example of how even a small country can get the best of the United States, and how a communist regime can reunify a divided nation on its own terms.”
–Sheila Miyoshi Jager, “What Trump Needs To Know About the North Koreans and Hanoi,” Politico, February 26, 2019