North Korean state media published a report on Wednesday telling its citizens that President Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term in office; as all media not controlled by the communist regime is illegal in North Korea, this was likely the first time that the vast majority of citizens had heard the news.
The entirety of the report, as published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), read, “Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States. He was elected the 47th US President in November last year. The inaugural ceremony was held in Washington on January 20 local time.”
North Korea had not notified its citizens that Trump was elected in November or offered it any details on the presidential race. Dictator Kim Jong-un did send well-wishes to President Trump following his survival after an assassination attempt in July – which resulted in North Koreans finding out he was campaigning for the presidency – but North Korean officials insisted that the repressive regime was not interested in who was president and would continue to be stridently anti-American regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.
In an apparent attempt to reiterate that stance, Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Kim regime, published an article this week celebrating the capture of the USS Pueblo, an active U.S. Navy vessel, in 1968. The Pueblo is the only U.S. Navy ship known to be in the custody of a foreign government and North Korea currently displays it as part of a communist propaganda museum. It is still technically a commissioned Navy vessel.
“On the River Pothong which flows besides the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang there is a U.S. imperialist spy ship Pueblo, the prize,” Rodong Sinmun proclaimed.
“The Pueblo incident served as a historic occasion which proved once again the tradition of eternal victory for the DPRK [North Korea] and defeat for the U.S.,” the propaganda newspaper continued. “The Korean people’s will to defend the sovereignty and dignity of the country has remained unchanged as ever.”
Consuming sources of news or entertainment outside of official government propaganda in North Korea is illegal and severely punished, in many cases via public executions. This leaves the vast majority of the country’s population with little information regarding their country’s relationship with America or Washington’s policies toward Pyongyang. Technically, America is in a state of war with North Korea that began with the onset of the Korean War in 1950. In 1953, both sides of the war signed an armistice agreement that ended active hostilities and resulted in what has turned out to be a permanent U.S. military presence in South Korea, helping to preserve the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) along the inter-Korean border. Despite the lack of fighting, North Korea regularly publishes propaganda attacking the United States and threatening to use its nuclear weapons to annihilate the country.
Trump’s return to the Oval Office is notable, as he established a uniquely functional relationship with North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un. Trump became the first American president to enter North Korea by Kim’s invitation in 2019, when both met at the DMZ. During Trump’s presidency, North Korea ceased its nuclear weapons testing and claimed to shut down the Punggye-Ri Nuclear Test Site. Kim also limited hostile language against Washington.
Trump’s talks with Kim, meant to seek an exit to the nearly century-old Korean War, ended in 2019 after a summit between Trump and Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam. Trump walked out of the summit after, he said, the North Korean negotiators demanded that Trump lift all sanctions on the country without Pyongyang ceasing to commit human rights atrocities or threaten the destruction of America, South Korea, and Japan.
“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that,” Trump said upon his departure. “He wants to de-nuke, but he wants to do some areas that aren’t what we want.”
Trump recalled his relationship with Kim in remarks to reporters on Monday while signing executive orders.
“I think North Korea turned out to be good. I was very friendly with him [Kim]. He liked me. I liked him. We got along very well,” Trump said. “They thought that was a tremendous threat. Now he is a nuclear power. But we got along.”
Trump also said Kim “has tremendous condo capabilities,” referring to communist tourist developments in the port city of Wonsan.
The Kim regime appeared to be preparing for a tougher Trump entering the White House in December, when Kim ordered his underlings to prepare the “toughest anti-U.S. counteraction to be launched aggressively.”
“The U.S. is the most reactionary state that regards anti-communism as its invariable state policy,” Kim said in an end-of-year speech to the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). “The alliance between the U.S., Japan and ROK [South Korea] has expanded into a nuclear military bloc for aggression, and the ROK [South Korea] has turned into an out-and-out anti-communist outpost of the U.S. This reality clearly shows to which direction we should advance and what we should do and how.”
At the time that state media published those remarks by Kim, it had not yet notified citizens that Trump was the president-elect, highlighting Pyongyang’s promise that it would not change its position against the United States despite Kim’s affinity for Trump. North Korean officials clarified this after Kim published a friendly message to Trump following the failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“He sincerely hoped that they would be recovered as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it,” KCNA said of Kim’s letter to Trump in July.
“It is true that Trump, when he was president, tried to reflect the special personal relations between the heads of states in the relations between states,” KCNA conceded in July, “but he did not bring about any substantial positive change.”
“He that puts on a public gown must put off a private person. The foreign policy of a state and personal feelings must be strictly distinguished,” it added.
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