Ro Khanna Introduced A Resolution Calling For The Formal End To The Korean War. Will Trump Pay Attention?

Khanna has 18 co-sponsors fo a resolution formally ending the 69 year old Korean War. Khanna is asking Trump to provide a clear roadmap to achieve a final peace settlement while highlighting the importance of reciprocal actions and confidence-building measures between the parties. Khanna: "Historic engagement between South and North Korea has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity to formally end this war. President Trump must not squander this rare chance for peace. He should work hand in hand with our ally, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, to bring the war to a close and advance toward the denuclearization of the peninsula."

Former Pres. Jimmy Carter, who supports Khanna's resolution predicted that, if adopted it "will help bring this nearly 70 year conflict to a close. I have visited North Korea several times to talk with their leadership and study the best path forward for peace. Ending the threat of war is the only way to ensure true security for both the Korean and American people and will create the conditions to alleviate the suffering of the ordinary North Koreans who are most harmed by ongoing tensions."

Co-sponsors include Barbara Lee (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Bobby Rush (D-IL), Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Andy Kim (D-NJ), and Deb Haaland (D-NM), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Judy Chu (D-CA) and José Serrano (D-NY). The resolution calls on the Trump Administration to make greater efforts to include women in the peace process, citing the Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017 which Trump signed into law.

The resolution clarifies that ending the war does not necessitate a withdrawal of US troops from Korea or an acceptance of North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power. The resolution calls on the Administration to continue the repatriation of servicemember remains, and expand cooperation to achieve reunions of divided Korean and Korean-American families and facilitate people-to-people exchanges and humanitarian cooperation.

Trump is desperate for a deal with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that he can spin into something that looks like "a win" for himself-- at least to his base, the base that didn't know, in Michael Cohen's sworn testimony that Trump "is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat." The deal Trump looks like he's giving Kim doesn't look like a winner for the U.S., although at least it will include the peace declaration Khanna is calling for-- still not a peace treaty, but a step up from the 1953 armistice.

Trump is agreeing to establish quasi-embassies-- called liaison offices-- with North Korea and North Korea will agree to stop producing materials for nuclear bombs at Yongbyon, which will be shut down. For this to be real, Kim would have to agree to international inspections. Trump's quid pro quo is an agreement to advocate lifting some UN sanctions (so it can pursue joint economic projects with South Korea).

UPDATE: Trump Phucs Up In Hanoi

Maybe Trump was too preoccupied with thoughts of impeachment, imprisonment, Matt Gaetz, and his rotten kids behind bars to focus on Korean nukes, but the headlines this morning were all about how his poorly-planned talks with Li'l Kim had abruptly collapsed. I have terrible bronchitis and cough all night. At one point I woke from a fitful sleep and there was Trump on TV in Hanoi doing a surreal and completely incoherent press conference about Otto Warmbier. Has he slipped over the ledge of senility? Or was it just the cough medicine? Oh, there's a video:

Talks between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un collapsed Thursday after the two sides failed to bridge a standoff over U.S. sanctions, a dispiriting end to high-stakes meetings meant to disarm a global nuclear threat.

Trump blamed the breakdown on North Korea’s insistence that all the punishing sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Pyongyang be lifted without the North committing to eliminate its nuclear arsenal.

“Sometimes you have to walk,” Trump explained at a closing news conference after the summit was abruptly cut short. He said there had been a proposed agreement that was “ready to be signed.”

...Mere hours after both nations had seemed hopeful of a deal, the two leaders’ motorcades roared away from the downtown Hanoi summit site within minutes of each other, their lunch canceled and a signing ceremony scuttled. The president’s closing news conference was hurriedly moved up, and he departed for Washington more than two hours ahead of schedule.

The disintegration of talks came after Trump and Kim had appeared to be ready to inch toward normalizing relations between their still technically warring nations and as the American leader dampened expectations that their negotiations would yield an agreement by North Korea to take concrete steps toward ending a nuclear program that Pyongyang likely sees as its strongest security guarantee.