Quote Originally Posted by OngBonga View Post
Trump might well be lucky in that Kim is simply forced to the negotiating table now, during Trump's term, and it has nothing to do with Trump's strategy.
Kim's trajectory flipped after Trump began implementing his strategy.

Here are the nutshells of what Trump has done.

He got China to commit to wanting Kim to denuclearize. Whether or not China wanted it, they committed to it publicly from Trump's prodding. Then Trump gave China the first swing and TOLD them he will fix it if they can't. He also showed them how he fixes things (think: MOAB). China tried to fix it but it didn't work. Trump praised China and reiterated how much China wants to fix it and how they can fix it but if they don't Trump will fix it. In the second go around, China tried harder to fix it, but failed again. Trump then gave them a third shot. They publicly failed again. Then Trump publicly said they had their shot and he will step in now. China didn't protest, because China couldn't protest without losing face at this point.

Then sanctions started coming down. Much, much bigger sanctions than normal. The US began getting its way on sanctions finally. Not only was China not blocking them but China was helping US sanctions by this point. Imports to NK have fallen off a fucking cliff in the last few months. Everybody has been cooperating on squeezing NK finally. Big players in China industry that deal with NK have been getting squeezed. Actual products heading to NK illegally have been stopped. NK's oil imports, which China ALWAYS provided no matter what have since been cut down to a tiny fraction of what they were half a year ago.

While all this was going on, Trump has been signalling to Kim that the only way out of this war on the NK economy is denuclearization. At first Kim was fighting against Trump on this, but after Trump solved the China problem and then the world crushed its oil imports, Kim's tune changed. He moved towards trying to get SK on his side, and what has emerged from that are incredible reports from SK that Kim has not refuted that Kim wants to meet with Trump and has denuclearization on the table.

The biggest tell we have right now that this is the real deal is that SK reported that Kim said his father's dying wish was denuclearization, and Kim hasn't refuted it. For the first time in its nuclear history, NK doesn't have China's stalwart backing and doesn't have its needed imports. The chance is super high now that we are dealing with a Kim regime that is looking at taking Trump's out and finally denuclearizing.