Trump undercuts his ROK conservative supporters with imperial remark

South Korea says no change on North Korean sanctions
Joyce Lee, Hyonhee Shin

Kang’s remarks on sanctions, retracted after criticism from South Korean lawmakers, prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to say South Korea would need U.S. approval to relieve sanctions.

“They won’t do it without our approval. They do nothing without our approval,” Trump told reporters, when asked about her comments.

Trump has said sanctions will remain in place until North Korea it denuclearizes.

Kang backtracked on her remarks after facing criticism from some conservative lawmakers that the sanctions cannot be removed unless North Korea first apologized for the attack, a stance adopted by former South Korean governments.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northkorea-southkorea-sanctions/south-korea-says-no-change-on-north-korean-sanctions-idUSKCN1ML06L


It's obvious that South Korea is trying to get ready for a time in the future when sanctions are eased in some respect. ROK Foreign Minister Kang Kyung Hwa mentioning this outright was to blunder into the radical minority conservative party's trap, of making any reconciliation with the north dependent on approval from the surviving families of the Chonan incident. This would furnish an additional delaying tactic after any easing of international sanctions to the minority party which adamantly opposes the current democratic party administration on all fronts. Ironically, Trump's dumb remarks discredited and undermined his conservative South Korean supporters by painting them as tools of an outside great power that seeks to dominate South Korea's internal political policies. The minority conservative parties, whose corrupt former presidents are in prison, suffered additional political losses during the last off year election. They have been desperately seeking to get some traction against the Moon administration.

Trump's remarks fall right into the North Korean ideological criticism of the South as a "lackey of the imperialist US," and diminish South Korea's posture both with the North and internationally. Korean conservatives, especially in the Liberty Korea Party, continue to play the role of spoiler for the US and Japan in South Korean internal politics.

However, some Korean conservative lawmakers are trying to distance themselves from Trump's remarks calling them "insulting."