Kamala Harris and North Korea: What Should We Expect?

Kamala Harris Hints at a Retrograde Policy Toward North Korea: Washington’s handling of relations with North Korea has been an appalling failure for more than seven decades. The only partial exception to that consistent record of animosity and tension occurred during Donald Trump’s administration when a cautious dialogue between the two countries began to emerge. Unfortunately, hawks in both parties worked feverishly to torpedo Trump’s effort, and they ultimately succeeded. The victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential election marked a complete return to the pre-Trump confrontational status quo.

The rhetoric from Harris regarding North Korea in her current campaign for president has remained alarming. On several occasions, most notably during her speech accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, her views on North Korea have been especially worrisome. That section of her speech consisted of a shrill partisan attack against Donald Trump and an arrogant promise that her administration would pursue an utterly uncompromising policy toward North Korea.

Harris seems hostile even to the concept of dialogue with a foreign adversary. She stated, “I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un, who are rooting for Trump. Because, you know, they know… he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat himself. And as president, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals, because in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand, and I know where the United States belongs.”

Unfortunately, the policy Harris promises to adopt would be a guarantee of continuing failure for the United States. However, it is consistent with the obstructionist actions that Democrats in Congress and the news media adopted to undermine even Trump’s limited reform of North Korea policy during his presidency. At the time, prominent Democrats denounced Trump for being willing even to talk to Kim Jong Un. Harris’ rhetoric strongly suggests that her attitude as president in 2025 would be the same as the strategy her congressional colleagues pursued during the Trump administration.

Harris needs to adopt the opposite course toward North Korea to the one that she seems intent on pursuing. In early February 2022, China’s ambassador to the United Nations correctly emphasized that the United States needs to come up with “more attractive and more practical” policies and actions to reduce tensions with North Korea and avoid a return to a “vicious circle” of confrontation, condemnation, and sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile program. U.S. leaders should seek ways to establish a normal bilateral relationship with North Korea. That means easing and eventually eliminating the vast array of economic sanctions that have been imposed over the decades. 

It also means negotiating a treaty formally ending the Korean War and establishing full diplomatic relations between the two countries. If such actions are not taken, the United States faces the imminent prospect of having no meaningful relations with a country that has an expanding nuclear arsenal combined with delivery systems capable of striking the American homeland. One would be hard-pressed to identify a more dangerous situation.

Yet Kamala Harris seems intent on perpetuating a Korea policy that risks the worst possible scenario. Continuing to treat North Korea as a pariah increases the likelihood of rash, desperate behavior on Pyongyang’s part, which could rekindle the dormant Korean War—this time as a nuclear catastrophe.

U.S. policy toward North Korea desperately requires fresh, realistic thinking. Sadly, all current signs indicate that Kamala Harris would not be a source of such fresh thinking.

About the Author: Ted Galen Carpenter 

Ted Galen Carpenter, Senior Fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute and a contributing editor to the National Interest, is the author of 13 books and more than 1,300 articles on international affairs. Dr. Carpenter held various senior policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato Institute. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).

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