How to brace for Trump’s re-election

No incumbent U.S. president has abandoned his re-election bid. The upcoming election will be a race between Trump and Biden.

Kim Hyun-kiThe author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

On January 23, 2017 — just three days after his inauguration as the 45th U.S. president — Donald Trump signed an executive order pulling the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He began a crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and declared he would resume the two oil pipeline construction projects suspended for environmental reasons during the Obama administration. Trump also signed executive orders to build a wall along the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border and restrict immigration from foreign countries, including seven predominantly Muslim countries. He signed 30 executive orders during his first 100 days in office, followed by his threats to revise the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and consider the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Korea. Yet America is raving over the former U.S. president again. Why?

Most election experts point to three factors: high inflation, up 20 percent since the launch of the Biden administration; excessive support for Ukraine with tax money; and a threefold increase of immigrants from Trump’s first term. Trump masterfully changes such discontent into rage. Some raise the possibility of Trump going to prison even before the Nov. 5 presidential election, as he could be sentenced to up to 717 years in jail if convicted of all the charges against him in the four ongoing trials. But the U.S. Constitution does not have articles barring a criminal from being elected president. In a farcical development, U.S. voters and the rest of the world may see the former U.S. president taking the oath of office in prison this time and pardoning himself shortly after.

Will it be possible?

People often make travesty of Trump’s never-ending repertoire of hyperbole, but he was a rare leader who faithfully kept his promises. That makes him look scarier than other leaders. The JoongAng Ilbo asked Ahn Ho-young — Korea’s former ambassador to the United States and current chair professor at Kyungnam University — about his own memories of Trump while serving as the emissary before and after the 2016 U.S. presidential race. But surprisingly, the former ambassador was prudent about the possibility of seeing a second Trump administration. “In 1992, when I was a senior diplomat in the Korean embassy in Washington D.C., nearly all media anticipated George H.W. Bush’s victory over Bill Clinton. But Clinton won. In 2016, when I served as the ambassador, everyone expected Hillary Clinton to defeat Donald Trump in the election. But Trump won. Our prediction went wrong twice, not once,” the former ambassador said. The following is an excerpt of the interview.

In an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo, Ahn Ho-young, Korea’s former ambassador to the United States before and after the 2016 U.S. presidential race, stresses the importance of building reliable networks under the surface to prepare for Trump’s reelection rather than sensitively reacting to his key campaign aides’ remarks. [KIM KYUNG-ROK]

Q. What was the most surprising for you while watching closely the launch of the first Trump administration?A. I thought Trump would surely attack the Korea-U.S. FTA given the comments he made during the campaign. So I personally met U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer after the launch of the Trump administration to explain why the trade agreement should be respected. But a shocking moment came on June 30, 2017 when President Moon Jae-in was visiting Washington for a summit with Trump after taking office in May. Shortly before the start of their first summit at the Oval Office, Trump abruptly said the two governments had been negotiating to revise the FTA. I was flabbergasted by his remarks as the negotiation hadn’t even started. In the dinner at the White House the previous evening, Trump kept raising trade issues — including Korea’s car and steel exports to the U.S. — with his Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross while President Moon was watching them across the table. Ross heartily agreed with his boss.

How did you approach Trump’s top aides before and after his election as president? We agonized over how to contact them from one year before the election. I sent my handwritten letters to Trump’s first daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr., as I had nothing to lose. Fortunately, all of them wrote back to me. Before his father-in-law’s inauguration, Kushner introduced me to Michael Flynn, who later became Trump’s first national security adviser. After the scene of a Korean ambassador meeting Flynn at Trump Tower in New York was aired live on CNN and other news channels, other countries’ ambassadors in Washington repeatedly asked me how I was able to meet him. But I could not tell them because it was a business secret. [LAUGHTER]

We thought Trump became president in 2016 thanks to his luck. Why are Americans cheering for him again? Do you remember Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011? That was a social movement pitting “the 99 percent” against “the 1 percent” to ease the ever-diverging economic disparity. At that time, mainstream media expressed concerns about huge ramifications of the dichotomy if it converted into a political movement. Trump led that crusade. While old school politicians present solutions to address income inequalities in a confusing way, Trump presented a clear-cut prescription: As Americans suffer serious damage from China’s persistent export of cheap products, we must impose high tariffs on them. It will be no different this time, too.

In his recent interview with media, Christopher Miller — a former acting Pentagon chief who authored the defense section of Trump’s Project 2050, a summary of policy proposals for his reelection — pointed to the need to see if Korea still needs 28,500 U.S. troops or if some changes are needed. If Trump 2.0 launches, wouldn’t he pull out U.S. forces? The report also contained many positive aspects quite different from the interview. For instance, Miller defined China as the biggest security threat to the U.S. while stressing the role of Korea and Japan in countering China’s offensives. Citing a critical lack of U.S. warships, the report underscored the need for the Defense Department to build at least 355 more warships, suggesting the need to cooperate with allies, probably including Korea with strong competitiveness in shipbuilding. In the interview, Miller specifically mentioned Korea as a partner to cooperate with in the process of rebuilding the U.S. defense industry which revealed many loopholes in the Ukraine war.

But in the interview, Miller made remarks highly suggestive of Trump 2.0’s endorsement of nuclear reduction talks — not denuclearization talks — with North Korea, saying the time has come for both sides “to negotiate based on reality, not expectations.” Isn’t the comment basically a proposal to accept the North as a nuclear power? Given Miller’s relatively short service as acting defense secretary in the Trump administration, the comment gave me the impression that he didn’t think deeply over the nuclear issue. He seemed to take an overly convenient approach over the conundrum. In contrast, Robert O’Brien, former national security advisor to Trump, recently said that the North’s behavior made him understand the South’s call for its own nuclear armaments. But O’Brien drew the line. He said that’s not an option, stressing the need to untie the knot through the U.S. extended deterrence. A man who handled national security of a country is different. We don’t have to react to Trump’s aides’ comments in an oversensitive way.

If Trump reenters the White House, what will happen to the U.S.-Russia and U.S.-China relations? Whoever wins the election, the United States’ hardline stance toward China will not change. What worries us is U.S. relations with Russia. The most dreadful thing during the past Trump administration is that Trump and Putin did not leave any record of their meetings. That is terrible.

Is it really possible? U.S. officials say that’s possible. Sadly, the leaders of the two countries with thousands of nuclear warheads each allegedly did not leave behind any trace of their conversations.

Trump pledges to impose a universal 10 percent tariff on all U.S. imports. Would he do the same to Korea and others who struck a free trade deal with the U.S.? It is impossible under normal circumstances. Levying a new tariff on Korean products itself is a violation of the Korea-U.S. FTA.

Would Trump return to common sense if elected president again? It is too early to tell.

Is there any possibility that Biden will be replaced by another Democratic candidate? No incumbent U.S. president has abandoned his re-election bid. The upcoming election will be a race between Trump and Biden.

Any advice for possible Trump presidency 2.0? No one knows who will be the winner until the last moment. But you don’t have to go too far. On his Mar. 8 trip to the United States, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met Trump, not Biden. Such a decision should be avoided. Building reliable networks under the surface to prepare for Trump’s reelection is better than behaving ostentatiously.

Do you mean we don’t have to follow former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who visited Trump Tower shortly after his election as president? A meeting with Trump before his possible election victory will do more good than harm. But we don’t have to hurry. While watching Abe visiting Trump Tower to meet him, I was surprised at Tokyo’s tenacious diplomacy. At that time, I thought it would not help improve Japan’s image.

What should the Korean embassy in Washington do to prepare for Trump 2.0? Embassy staff must first trust their chief in Washington. Korean media often criticize the embassy for not thoroughly preparing for Trump’s reelection like the Japanese embassy does. But I am convinced that our embassy staff are working hard behind the scenes just like they did in the lead-up to Trump’s election victory. Some media outlets condemn the Korean embassy for hiring five lobby firms while the Japanese embassy hired 25. If the need arises, Ambassador Cho Hyun-dong will ask for more. But first, we must trust and support the ambassador and his staffers in Washington.