Former President Donald Trump would pursue diplomacy “no matter what the country is” should he return to the White House, a former U.S. diplomat said Thursday, citing his personal engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his first term.
Richard Grenell, former ambassador to Germany, made the remarks during a press briefing hosted by the Conservative Political Action Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the Republican National Convention was underway.
“I think no matter what the country is … he’s going to engage and fight for America,” he said. “And so (it) doesn’t matter who is the leader of a country. We’re going to seek to have a great bilateral relationship.”
Grenell pointed to Trump’s diplomacy with Kim as an example of the former president prioritizing America’s interests in diplomacy. Trump held three high-profile meetings with Kim, including their first summit in Singapore in 2018.
“Take Kim Jong-un. He was able to say this is a leader who’s threatening us … why don’t I go t
alk to him? why don’t I go engage with him?,” he said. “That wasn’t an approval of Kim Jong-un. It was a realization that Kim Jong-un was threatening neighbors and possibly American interests and so we needed to do something.”
The former diplomat said he “loved” Trump’s engagement with Kim as he noted that he lives in Los Angeles, a city on the U.S. west coast — more in range of North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles than cities on the east coast.
“Not a lot of people on the east coast pay attention to North Korea enough because they’re not as big a threat as LA is,” he said.
Grenell’s remarks added to speculation that Trump, if reelected, could resume summitry with Kim. But doubts have emerged over whether Kim would be interested in dialogue with Washington at a time of its growing military alignment with Moscow.
Grenell has been mentioned as a candidate for a top foreign policy post in a second Trump administration. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2018-2020.
Source: Yonhap
News Agency