In opinion piece for The Hill, North Korean defector slams Trump's approach on the region

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Yeonmi Park is the defector in question.

Congratulations, Mr. Trump — you’ve gone where other U.S. presidents would not. In paying a friendly visit to the giant gulag that is the North Korea, you’ve taken another step toward legitimizing the Kim regime. In doing so, my chances of returning alive and free to that land have declined again.

The regime likes these photo-ops. Pyongyang had to ransom two journalists in 2009 to get Bill Clinton to visit. Carter went in 2010 under similar circumstances. State media celebrates and publicizes these occasions. They send a signal to the rest of the country that the regime will be there to last. You’re giving this to the regime for free, Mr. President. I thought you told us you were a good negotiator?

North Korea is a country that deliberately starves its own citizens. Its GDP could feed its population of 25 million twice over, but the regime chooses to keep its people on the edge of survival. Conditions are so bad that people risk their lives to live as slaves in China rather than be tortured and starved in the North.

My friends and family are among those who have made such a choice. In the last eighty years, more than six million people have died because of the Kim regime’s brutal dictatorship. Potentially three million perished in the famine of the 1990s alone. Would you have congratulated yourself for being the first president to visit Auschwitz, not as a liberator but as a “friend” of Hitler?

North Korea is an artificial construct — as arbitrary as a line on a map. It’s a Soviet-designed totalitarian state that works so well it outlasted its creators by 30 years. Kim Il Sung was installed by Joseph Stalin to keep the North in the Soviet orbit.

Kim’s grandson is kept in place with your help. The Kim regime is not the legitimate government of the North Korean people, any more than a German built concentration camp was the legitimate government of the Polish region of Auschwitz.

There’s no need to take my word for any of this. Satellite images will show you the concentration camps. The average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean. North Koreans routinely risk death to escape to the South. You’ve met many North Korean refugees who back all of this up.

Why then do you give these criminals what they want? It’s glaringly obvious that you do so simply to pretend that you’ve accomplished something. It’s a victory as false as Neville Chamberlin’s at Munich. Only a weak man would give in to criminals. Only a weak man who has failed in his campaign promises to the nation.

I am grateful to the United States for defeating imperial Japan and liberating South Korea. Soviet aggression led to the further enslavement of my people in the North. I do not ask Americans to fight a war to set them free. But I ask you not to collude with the criminal Kim regime or to obstruct others from working towards my people's freedom. I ask this for selfish reasons. I would like to go home someday.

Man, I just feel sadder and sadder as these days go by.

@joebones5000: like they do when he rapes someone

No proof. Just your racist hate.

Wow, even the North Korea foreign policy is a disaster. All these times Trump being friendly with Kim is legitimatizing Kim's government.

What the hell do people want?

Don't talk to the guy "Your doing nothing for the people of NK!"

Talk to the guy "Your legitimatizing their government!"

Start a war "We sending our soldiers into unnecessary violence"

Seriously anything Trump does and people shit on it. He could solve world hunger and people would still find something wrong with it.

Since removal through impeachment or the 25th Amendment is probably not going to happen at this point, the goal right now for the president’s biggest critics is to ensure that Trump is a one-term president, something we haven’t had since the early 90s. There aren’t enough Democrats to guarantee his defeat in his reelection bid, so they are seeking help from the independents.

Every time people admit that he did something that may be positive, that is something that could convince undecided independent voters to just reelect him. As a result, all actions, no matter how important or benign, must be presented as the worst thing in the history of the presidency in order to motivate those independents to vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination, no matter who it is.

@ad1x2: nah, it's the hypocrisy.

Everything Obama did that was bad is now good when Trump did it.

Everything Obama did that was good is bad when Trump does it.

Fox news doesn't even hide their bias and admits it openly on air.

Ya, what a shame that America doesn´t nuke the shit out of NK right and start WW3.

And this guy is clearly of his rocks, we IE the world has sanctioned the shit out of NK but with China being it´s "backer" there is no way anyone would ever get NK to stop developing nukes or even hand over the ones they do have. Especially not considering how the world did after Libya handed over theirs and got blown into oblivion and now the country is a cesspool of conflict.

@Nuck81: so your admitting your disdain for having talks with NK is because there were people who were critical of Obamas tactics as well.. Lol

your disdain is purely partison based, not on what is actually happening.

I dont know what the answer is to north korea. Our past policy hasn't really achieved anything, but certainly our current policy isn't exactly spectacular either. Do you try to ignore and isolate these regimes in the hope they change or do you engage them. That's a difficult question to answer.

I like how everyone is resorting to extremes and thinking that not talking to North Korea means "lets start a war." As much as I support non-violent approaches, I have no faith in the Trump Administration's approach. I don't care about them holding hands and walking across the border. I don't know how or why that's considered a "foreign policy success" by anyone.

The same logic can be applied with Iran, except the Obama administration actually succeeded in convincing Iran to dump its nuclear weapons program in exchange for sanctions relief. Then the Trump administration screwed that up, dumped the deal, agitated Iran, and now Iran is ramping up its program and Trump wants them to follow the deal.

Or maybe because he actually isn't a good president on domestic or foreign policy issues, regardless of any small successes. Ever considered that?

Where is it even hinted that I said that not talking to him meant war?