The Trump administration is now distancing itself from John Bolton after North Korea identified his comments as the source of their anger yesterday.
The White House on Wednesday downplayed comments by national security adviser John Bolton, who recently invoked Libya’s decision to denuclearize during the Bush administration as a model for US policy on North Korea, potentially placing a planned US-North Korea summit in jeopardy.
Hours earlier, a North Korean official said Bolton’s remarks were indicative of an “awfully sinister move” to imperil the Kim regime. North Korea stunned Washington on Tuesday by threatening to abandon talks between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un if Washington insists on pushing it “into a corner” on nuclear disarmament.
Referring to the Libya comparison, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that she hadn’t “seen that as part of any discussions so I’m not aware that that’s a model that we’re using.
“I haven’t seen that that’s a specific thing. I know that that comment was made. There’s not a cookie cutter model on how this would work.”
She continued, “This is the President Trump model. He’s going to run this the way he sees fit. We’re 100% confident, as we’ve said many times before, as I’m sure you’re all aware, he’s the best negotiator and we’re very confident on that front.”
There’s only a few people that noticed the “Libya” comparison that Bolton had made, but apparently, Kim Jong Un was one of them.
Here’s what Bolton said:
In April, Bolton suggested that the White House was looking at Libya as an example of how it will handle negotiations with North Korea to denuclearize.
“We have very much in mind the Libya model from 2003, 2004,” Bolton said on Fox News. “There are obviously differences. The Libyan program was much smaller. But that was basically the agreement that we made.”
The US agreed to ease sanctions on Libya in 2003 in exchange for a promise by Moammar Gadhafi to abandon his country’s nuclear program. Eight years later, however, Gadhafi was overthrown and killed by rebels backed by Washington.
I mean, that’s not a great model for Kim Jong Un, right? LOL! I wonder just how much Trump will blame Bolton for apparently ruining one of the greatest opportunities he has had to yell “MAGA!” during his term. I guess it all depends on whether Kim Jong Un was bluffing before, or if he’s bluffing now.