Coons: ‘Obviously’ the Long Term Goal of China and North Korea To Get America off the Korean Peninsula

EXCERPT:

COONS: "I’ll tell you, my hope is that he will come away from a second meeting with the dictator of North Korea with more substance than the last meeting in Singapore. I'll give President Trump credit. The remains of Americans who were killed in Korea were returned home to their families after the first summit, that's a positive thing. There haven’t been more missile tests or nuclear weapons tests in recent months. That’s a positive thing. But North Korea has taken no significant, substantial steps to reveal to the United States and the world its nuclear arsenal and all of its different facilities to begin an accounting that would then lead to substantive denuclearization. My concern is that President Trump hoping for a big breakthrough or to change the subject for Michael Cohen’s testimony might offer something startling without consultation with our critical allies in Japan and South Korea. It is obviously the long-term, strategic goal of both North Korea and China to get the United States off the Korean peninsula to fully denuclearize, which in their view means getting the United States to withdraw our treaty commitments to South Korea's security. I’m hopeful the President won’t do anything sudden or abrupt in that field. I was just, as you know Wolf, at a security conference in Munich, where there were the leaders of dozens of other countries. Our President’s very abrupt decision to withdraw our troops from Syria made without any consultation with our allies who had troops in combat at that moment or with leaders in Congress, has set many people on edge as they look at this Hanoi conference and anticipate what sorts of concessions President Trump might be willing to make in order to get a positive outcome in his — "