North Korea's Prelude to Trump's Iran No-Nuke Diplomacy

Austin Bay on Jun 3, 2026

The remnant Ayatollah regime continues to receive hard doses of Trump Administration 2's "No Nukes" coercive diplomacy.

Here's a sketch of the process: multidimensional economic strangulation; diplomatic sparring; diplomatic engagement, disengagement, re-engagement; the threat and intermittently the deadly reality of American military power expressed in bombs and bullets with the goal of destruction calculated to spur diplomatic re-engagement.

Trump does have a script. Trump's strategic script begins in 1999 -- right, 1999, on Oct. 24, 1999 -- when Donald Trump appeared in a "Meet the Press" interview hosted by Tim Russert.

The interview is a historically illuminating flash forward to Trump's 2017--2018 coercive diplomatic effort to "denuclearize" North Korea's criminal Kim dictatorship.

In that 1999 interview, Trump summarized the U.S. government's weak and fruitless responses to North Korea's slow but undeterred quest to acquire nuclear weapons. The program transcript adds convincing depth to Trump's argument that nuclear weapons programs pursued by unrestrained criminal regimes must be confronted and their nuclear weapons programs eliminated. Perhaps -- with calculated effort -- the criminal regimes might collapse.

In the "Meet the Press" interview, Trump told Russert what he would do to solve the nuclear threat presented by North Korea.

Trump: "First I'd negotiate and be sure I could get the best deal possible. ... The biggest problem this world has is nuclear proliferation. And we have a country out there in North Korea which is sort of wacko, which is not a bunch of dummies, and they are developing nuclear weapons. ... If that negotiation doesn't work, then better solve the problem now than solve it later."

If the 1999 words sound like Trump 2025-2026 addressing Iran -- that's no accident.

First negotiate for "the best deal possible." Check. Emphasize the imminent threat posed by criminal maniacs possessing nukes. Check.

Subsequent Trump Administration 1 actions vis-a-vis North Korea look a bit like 2025-2026 Iran. In March 2017, Trump's foreign policy team began a coordinated attack on Kim Jong Un's regime with the interim goals of disrupting Pyongyang's political and military plans, exposing the regime's weaknesses and psychologically rattling Kim (Little Rocket Man). The administration's goal was to set conditions to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

Example: On March 17, 2017, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared, "The policy of strategic patience has ended. We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security, economic measures. All options are on the table." He added that if North Korea didn't end its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, why, Japan and South Korea might have to acquire their own nuclear arsenals.

Tillerson's rejection of strategic patience was an explicit repudiation of the Obama-era policy as expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democrat presidential candidate in 2016: "The approach that our administration is taking is of strategic patience in close coordination with our six-party allies." However, South Korea's Sunshine Policy and other "soft power" initiatives failed to stop North Korea's nuclear quest.

Trump's Multidimensional Coercive Diplomacy 2017-2018 included USAF strategic bombers flying show-of-force missions around the peninsula. B-1 Lancers flew simulated bombing runs in international airspace over the East Sea off North Korea's coast - a clear threat to strike nuclear facilities and ballistic missile launch sites located in northeastern North Korea.

The Trump-Kim Jong Un Singapore Summit in 2018 produced a promising agreement. In exchange for security guarantees (i.e., Kim gets to stay in power in Pyongyang), North Korea agreed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. No North Korean weapons, no U.S. nukes in South Korea and (implicitly) no South Korean nuclear weapons program.

Why the Trump administration's North Korea denuclearization efforts ultimately failed is the subject for a yet to be written book that addresses the politically crippling and ultimately destructive effect the Hillary Clinton-New York Times-CNN-Washington Post-Comey FBI "RussiaRussiaRussia" Big Lie had on Trump first-term foreign policy efforts to end the threat posed by a rogue regime armed with nuclear weapons. Yes, destroying Trump took precedent over stopping rogue nuclear war that could kill millions.

Now Trump Administration 2 has tackled Iran. I'll bet Kim (Little Rocket Man) has watched the military action with keen interest and deep dread. He knows North Korea's air defense system is archaic. He has definitely seen B-2 stealth bombers and 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs quickly destroy deeply buried, bunker-protected Iranian nuclear weapons production sites. Perhaps it's time to chat with Trump again, about security guarantees?

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To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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