One of the enduring mysteries from the first Trump term as president is the source of the ostensible deep affection between the two, as expressed, for example, in letters that they exchanged. Kim addressed Trump as “Your Excellency,” referring to their “deep and special friendship.” And: “Even now I cannot forget that moment of history when I firmly held Your Excellency’s hand … as the whole world watched.” “Every minute we shared 103 days ago in Hanoi was also a moment of glory that remains a precious memory.”
For his part, Trump described Kim as “far beyond smart,” that Kim “tells me everything,” and that Kim is “smart, loves his people, [and] he loves his country” adding last year that Kim is “open,” “honorable,” and “a pretty smart cookie.” And: “We fell in love, OK? No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”
Well. Trump and Kim also had their less-favorable moments, as is the case in any “special friendship” based upon “love,” but the source of the prominent affection has remained obscure. Until now. It turns out that both Kim and Trump are fervent believers in the policy of juche.
Loosely translated as self-reliance in all matters—economic, military, and political independence from other nations—juche as an organizing philosophy was described by The Great Leader Kim Il Sung (Kim Jong Un’s grandfather) as
Establishing juche means, in a nutshell, being the master of revolution and reconstruction in one’s own country. This means holding fast to an independent position, rejecting dependence on others, using one’s own brains, believing in one’s own strength, displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance, and thus solving one’s own problems for oneself on one’s own responsibility under all circumstances.
However fervent the demand for juche as an ideological principle in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, it has always been a myth. The DPRK from its very beginning in 1948 has depended on heavily subsidized trade and other subventions from the Soviet Union, China, the Republic of Korea, and international organizations, in particular to avoid the worst effects of poor harvests, flooding, and the like on food availability.
Compare the juche principle with Trump’s recent statements in support of his tariff proposals. “The tariffs are going to make us very rich and very strong.” “We don’t need them to make our cars, we make a lot of them, we don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests… we don’t need their oil and gas, we have more than anybody,” And then Trump faced the fundamental reality that tariffs are taxes, that an artificial constraint on supplies of important goods from overseas would mean that “there [will] be some pain” but “it will all be worth the price that must be paid?”
And so Trump backed off, ostensibly for a month, while negotiations with Canada and Mexico proceed. Like the North Koreans, who combined a massive long term propaganda campaign for juche with a wholesale surrender to reality, Trump too will argue forever that the US does not need to import much of anything—all of it can be produced domestically—while he will pretend that various concessions from trading partners, however trivial (the Canadians have agreed to appoint a “Fentanyl Czar”), will make the tariff/autarky policy unnecessary.
Thus has the mystery been solved. Kim Jong Un would suffer ideologically without Juche, while the people of North Korea would suffer massively with it. Donald Trump would suffer politically were he to abandon his preposterous theories of international trade, while the American people would suffer economically—and Trump politically—were such policies implemented. Kim and Trump are in love because they are brothers from different mothers.
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