Shinzo Abe reveals Trump’s thought process ahead of US-North Korea summit in posthumous memoirs

CNN
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Former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe urged then-President Donald Trump not to compromise with North Korea and continue to threaten military pressure, according to his memoir.

In the book published after he “Abe Shinzo: Kaikoroku,” Abe details his meetings with trumpet and exposes the then president’s thought process when it comes to negotiations with North Korea and strategic defense issues in Asia.

“I kept telling him, ‘What Kim Jong Un fears most is that suddenly a Tomahawk bullet will take his life, the life of his family. I kept telling Trump that only the US could pressure him to use force,'” Abe wrote in his Japanese-language memoir, according to an English translation.

Abe reiterated that there are concerns that Trump will convey to Kim, the leader of North Korea, that he is reluctant to take military action, and that both Abe and Trump’s national security team want to ensure that The world doesn’t find that out.

“If Kim Jong Un finds out that Trump is reluctant to take military action, then the pressure will ease. So we have to make absolutely sure that the outside world doesn’t know about it. We have to make the North Koreans think, ‘If Trump is involved, he’ll do it’. Not only me, but the entire US security team did their best to keep Trump’s true identity hidden,” Abe wrote.

In his memoir, Abe shared that he told Trump that North Korea should destroy “not only its nuclear weapons but also ICBMs, intermediate-range missiles and biological weapons… but he didn’t listen. For him, diplomacy is a new field and he has not been involved in North Korean affairs for many years. The State Department, the White House security team and I can’t stop Trump from thinking about making history.”

John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser at the time, confirmed Abe’s account and said the late prime minister had repeatedly emphasized the importance of portraying the US military threat to Needle. Bolton said he and his Japanese counterpart were in regular contact throughout his tenure.

“There’s no chance of you getting North Korea to denuclearize if they think there’s no military threat and Abe has said that to Trump in every meeting with him,” Bolton told CNN. “I’m grateful for the reference, but I don’t think Abe needs us to understand what he needs to do. And he was absolutely right. Trump needs to hear it over and over again.”

Trump’s team did not return a request for comment.

Trump has repeatedly said his “maximum pressure” strategy with North Korea is what brought Pyongyang to the negotiating table during his presidency, despite no agreement being reached on denuclearization. .

Abe said that one of Trump’s powers in negotiations is that he is seen as the person on the international stage who is most likely to use military force. “I think people are wary that Trump is the type of person who will suddenly use force in the international community,” he wrote.

However, if those actions cost the US a lot of money, then Trump is unlikely to react in the same way, according to the former prime minister.

“He is a businessman by nature, so he is very cautious about things that cost money. He thinks about diplomacy and security in terms of money,” Abe wrote.

“When the US military sent an aircraft carrier strike group around the Sea of ​​Japan in 2017, Trump initially asked me: ‘Do you know how much it costs to move an aircraft carrier? I do not like it.’ He said, ‘I would rather keep the aircraft carrier in a military port,'” Abe wrote.

Trump is also reluctant to continue funding military exercises with South Korea, Abe wrote, quoting Trump as saying, “Joint military exercises between the US and South Korea cost a huge amount of money. That is a waste. It should be stopped.

Abe thinks this will have an effect on the negotiations at US-North Korea summit and told Trump: “We can’t withdraw US troops in South Korea, if you’re going to have a US-North Korea summit.”

The book – released this week – includes interviews conducted by two journalists between October 2020 and October 2021. Abe died in July 2022 after being shot while delivering a campaign speech. campaigning on a street in central Japan. The book was originally scheduled to be published a year ago. However, the book revealed that Abe had requested a postponement of publication because it was too sensitive. It is said that his wife, Akie Abe, consented to the publication of the memoir.