/Biden dismisses Trump, Obama approaches in charting new North Korea policy

Biden dismisses Trump, Obama approaches in charting new North Korea policy

The president’s stance rejects both his predecessors’ plans.

Kim Jong Un, the totalitarian leader in Pyongyang, has tested Biden once with a launch of two short-range ballistic missiles and urged the U.S. to drop its push for denuclearization.

But the White House said Friday that its “goal remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, with the clear understanding that the efforts of the past four administration have not achieved this objective.”

The new policy, however, also said Biden will not “rely on strategic patience,” the term that defined the Obama era approach of hoping U.S. and United Nations sanctions would ultimately put the screws to the North Korean government.

While the Biden administration hasn’t provided full details, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday they will deploy a “calibrated, practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy with the DPRK and to make practical progress that increases the security of the United States, our allies and deployed forces.”

That means Kim could ultimately meet Biden, as he did Trump in two summits and one brief meeting at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. But Biden has emphasized such a meeting would not happen until working-level negotiators had actually achieved a deal.

Trump and Kim signed a joint statement after their first meeting in Singapore in June 2018 — a nonbinding agreement that committed to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and some measures to build confidence between the two countries technically still at war, like returning the bodies of Americans that went missing or were killed in action 70 years ago in the Korean War.

A senior administration official told The Washington Post, which first reported the review’s completion, that Biden’s officials won’t demand a full deal upfront.

“If the Trump administration was everything for everything, Obama was nothing for nothing, this is something in the middle,” the official told the newspaper.

The White House, National Security Council and State Department declined to provide more details to ABC News.

Biden will host South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the White House on May 21, Psaki confirmed Thursday — only the second world leader that Biden will host early in his term, after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga visited on April 16.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also made Japan and South Korea his first trips overseas, part of Biden’s focus on shoring up relations with the United States’ two treaty allies in East Asia and pushing back on neighboring China.

But both countries have eagerly awaited Biden’s North Korea policy announcement after Biden, Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan consulted their counterparts repeatedly for input on a path forward.

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