Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was one of a group of top Democrats to sign a letter for President Trump outlining their demands for his upcoming summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Before making a deal or lifting sanctions on North Korea, the White House must commit to the following five principles, they insist.
- Dismantle or remove every single one of North Korea’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons;
- End the production and enrichment of uranium and plutonium for military purposes, and permanently dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons infrastructure. This includes the destruction of test sites, all nuclear weapons research and development facilities and enrichment facilities;
- Suspend all of North Korea’s ballistic missile tests and disable, dismantle and eliminate all of North Korea’s ballistic missiles and programs.
- Commit to robust compliance inspections including a verification regime for North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Inspections must have complete access to all nuclear related sites and facilities with real time verification of North Korean compliance. A separate compliance regime for its chemical and biological weapons that prevents, detects and punishes cheating on the part of North Korea is also necessary. These compliance regimes must include “anywhere, anytime” inspections and snap-back sanctions if North Korea is not in full compliance;
- Be permanent, without any sunsets.
"Any deal that explicitly or implicitly gives North Korea sanctions relief for anything other than the verifiable performance of its obligations to dismantle its nuclear and missile arsenal is a bad deal," the Democratic lawmakers write for emphasis.
Does anyone remember these Democrats being so defensive of U.S. interests abroad when President Obama was in office?
The on-again, off-again summit with Kim Jong Un is back on again for June 12 in Singapore. President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis have already made it clear that no progress will be made if North Korea does not agree to take "irreversible" steps toward denuclearization.
You can read the Democrats' entire letter here. Other co-signers included Sens. Mark Warner (VA), Bob Menendez (NJ), Dianne Feinstein (CA) Dick Durbin (IL), Patrick Leahy (VT) and Sherrod Brown (OH).
