International leaders, notably on the center-left, are bracing for the fallout from Donald Trump’s potential victory — a return to uncertainty, commerce wars and bombastic exchanges that might rejigger the world order in a single day.
However a conflict with Trump is just not a given. Simply have a look at his relationship with former South Korean President Moon Jae-In, a soft-spoken human rights activist who famously had “good chemistry” with Trump, within the phrases of the then-U.S. president.
Moon, whose prime coverage precedence was de-nuclearizing North Korea by means of peaceable negotiations, labored with Trump to attempt to reestablish a relationship between the U.S. and North Korea. Negotiations in the end fell aside, however Trump and Moon nonetheless made historical past collectively: Trump grew to become the primary sitting U.S. president to fulfill with a ruling North Korean chief.
It’s a feat that different international leaders have marveled at: “Angela Merkel even requested me ‘Man, Trump and Kim Jong Un, how did you get these two powerful guys to sit down throughout one another? What’s your secret?’” Moon recollects.
The solutions are in his post-presidency e-book on protection and international relations, which was launched earlier this yr. In his e-book, Moon candidly assesses Trump’s America First insurance policies — “For my part, it’s not a fascinating change, it’s a step again,” he wrote — and but lays out precisely how his strategy to Trump discovered actual success.
Listed here are 5 takeaways from Moon’s e-book on the artwork of coping with Trump.
1. Embrace the transactional nature of the connection
Moon is underneath no phantasm about Trump’s diplomatic fashion and he acknowledges that Trump has by no means shied away from asking for what he desires. And but, Moon argues, Trump’s transactional strategy to geopolitics could be simpler to work with than those that are much less forthright.
“Some say he’s impolite and aggressive, however I preferred him as a result of he was trustworthy,” Moon wrote. “It’s more durable to take care of somebody who could also be smiling however is difficult to learn as a result of their actions communicate in a different way. Trump was trustworthy about what he needed, however he additionally revered that I had an obligation to satisfy the guarantees I made to my folks as president of Korea, simply as he did.”
“I may additionally simply actually categorical my very own ideas. We could have had clashes on points… however we had been by no means offended by the opposite individual,” he added.
Certainly, Moon wrote, different Western nations in the end aren’t too completely different from Trump regardless of their usually loftier rhetoric.
“There was plenty of criticism in opposition to Trump’s America First agenda,” Moon wrote. “However when Covid-19 hit, it grew to become each man for themselves, even amongst European nations, placing behind any efforts for cooperation or unity. Vaccines grew to become unique to rich nations, making a barbaric state of affairs the place folks from rich nations had been receiving vaccinations a number of occasions, the place some nations had none.”
2. Reap the benefits of Trump’s ego
Moon knew Trump likes being the primary and the most effective, and that these needs usually drive his decision-making. So when he wanted Trump to be onboard with assembly Kim Jong Un, Moon straight fed Trump’s ego by puffing up Trump’s potential legacy.
“If he had been to result in peaceable denuclearization, it will be an accomplishment that no president — together with President Obama — had managed, and that he will surely be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” Moon mentioned he advised the U.S. president. To Moon’s delight, Trump took the bait, desperate to outshine presidents earlier than him — notably his predecessor.
3. Don’t be afraid to play hardball
Some international leaders would possibly really feel helpless within the face of Trump’s repute as a bully who insists on getting his approach. In line with Moon, although, they’ll and will push again with out concern of retaliation.
“When it got here to the difficulty of protection price sharing, there wasn’t progress within the negotiations for some time as a result of Trump’s requests had been extreme, however that didn’t trigger any difficulties in my relationship with Trump or the Korea-U.S.A. relationship,” Moon wrote. “Even amongst allies we’re clashing for the good thing about our personal nations, so I spotted that each one I must do is to prioritize Korea with confidence.”
That confidence means with the ability to reply sharply, even when it’s to the chief of the most important financial system on the earth.
“President Moon! The Trump Tower I reside in solely has LG TVs. Whereas the U.S. is defending Korea, you guys are making LG TVs and promoting them again to us, and we’re in an enormous commerce deficit,” Moon recounts Trump saying. Somewhat than concede the notion — a harmful transfer that might have jeopardized commerce talks on the time — Moon replied, “These LG TVs are all made in Texas. Made in Texas! So you possibly can gloat about that.” It was a retort that left Trump puzzled, based on the e-book.
The flexibility to be direct, even with somebody like Trump, paid off for Moon. A prime precedence for him was to persuade the U.S. to elevate missile restrictions on the nation. In contrast to previous Korean administrations, which Moon says was too timid in its strategy to the U.S., the previous South Korean president was simple in his requests to Trump, firmly demanding the power to develop missiles in response to rising aggression from North Korea.
Moon added that persevering with the missile pointers would power South Korea to rely extra on American assets — a delicate matter to Trump, who needed to take a position much less in protection overseas. The transfer labored, and Moon completed what previous administrations couldn’t: Trump agreed to revise the missile guidelines, opening the trail for them to be fully lifted by 2021, on the finish of Moon’s presidency.
4. Enchantment to American patriotism
Trump likes feeling revered, and Moon decided that nothing reveals larger respect to Individuals than portraying admiration for his or her navy and patriotism.
When Moon made his first official go to to the U.S. in 2017, one of many first locations he went was to the Nationwide Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, the place there’s a monument to the Chosin Reservoir marketing campaign in 1950 through the Korean Struggle. In the course of the marketing campaign, U.S. troopers fought in subzero temperatures and took half in a large refugee evacuation. In a speech on the monument, Moon made a stunning revelation: that his mom was one of many evacuated refugees.
“By having Korea’s new president sing reward concerning the Chosin Reservoir marketing campaign in entrance of its monument and present respect for veterans of the battle, I needed folks to as soon as once more acknowledge the sturdy allyship between Korea and the U.S,” Moon wrote. “I added my household story so as to add emotional enchantment, and it was actually profitable.”
The speech, which was broadcast reside to Marines, was obtained positively amongst navy personnel, Moon wrote, and “performed a giant position in setting a superb temper for what may have been a tough first assembly with Trump.”
When the 2 met, Trump applauded the speech, commenting that it was extraordinarily touching, and so they bought alongside so effectively that he took Moon and his spouse on a tour of his private areas within the White Home, together with the residential areas on the 4th flooring. Trump advised Moon it was the primary time he gave such a tour to a world chief and even staged an image with the South Korean couple sitting on the desk the place Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Deal with.
5. Rent a Wharton graduate to be in your staff
Everybody is aware of Trump is keen on his Wharton diploma, however Moon has skilled firsthand how alumni ties can work in his favor.
Throughout his first go to to the U.S., Moon and his entourage had been chatting with Trump when Jang Ha-sung, Moon’s chief of workers for coverage, talked about he was a graduate of the College of Pennsylvania’s enterprise college. Trump was pleasantly stunned, saying “Oh! Wharton, a superb college!” And that was the second, Moon mentioned, when the pleasant banter actually kicked off.
