More than five years have transpired since former president Trump crossed the DMZ border and shook the North Korea dictator’s hand at the border to initiate a de-escalation of tension with the United States, address Kim Jong-Un’s long-range ballistic missile program, denuclearize his nuclear weapons cache, ratchet down the rhetoric, and entice him to consider mutually beneficial economic ties with South Korea and the West in exchange for sanction relief. The diplomacy route failed to produce a lasting result despite historic in-person meetings and subsequent discussions. Here is a video clip and two excerpts from “Kim Jong-Un Drops Gangnam for Gang Man Style” published in Dec. 2019:

“I have told Kim Jong-Un what I truly believe: That, like Iran, his country is full of tremendous untapped potential, but that to realize that promise, North Korea must denuclearize.” – POTUS, Oct. 2019

“Over the last several months, North Korea hinted that it is willing to back out of the agreed moratorium and negotiations on nuclear and long-range missile tests if the United States does not succumb to significant concessions. Kim Jong-Un wants the POTUS to lift international sanctions, provide security guarantees, and make additional sacrifices in return for abandoning its nuclear arsenal. The February summit in Vietnam was the second meeting between the POTUS and Kim Jong-Un, but it collapsed after the U.S. refused Kim’s demand for sanction relief in exchange for disassembling its main complex used for producing nuclear components. Soon after the breakdown in negotiations, North Korea began launching short-range ballistic missiles, and the Trump administration was not happy about the implications it would have on diplomatic efforts going forward. At the same time, the U.S. seized a North Korean ship that violated sanctions by carrying banned exports of coal, and a research group discovered the Yusang-ni missile operating base that appears to be a hiding place for North Korea’s arsenal of long-range missiles. Trump and Kim Jong-Un held an impromptu and historic meeting at the Korean DMZ border in late June where tentative plans were made to restart diplomacy, but a preemptive attempt in Sweden in early October failed to produce any results, and the bromance began to fade… It appears that Rocket Man publicly acknowledged what many intelligence analysts suspected for two decades. Be prepared for a potential worst-case scenario.” – TraderStef

Fast-forward to the Biden administration’s disastrous record in diplomatic relations, lack of prowess in military matters around the world, the emergence of NATO sanctions due to its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, an expansion of BRICS membership that embraces “reliable foreign partners” with a goal of de-dollarization (DCMS alternative to the West’s SWIFT), and North Korea resurfacing in legacy media news as a significant threat on the geopolitical stage due to provocative ballistic missile testing, heightened nuclear rhetoric, and a new alliance with Russia that was sealed four months ago.

This Will Destroy the Dollar… “Will a new BRICS currency instantly displace the dollar in its role as leading reserve currency? How much of a threat would it be?” – Jim Rickards, Oct. 14

Kim Jong-Un seldomly indulges in foreign excursions, but he visited Russia in Sep. 2023 and invited President Vladimir Putin to visit North Korea. Putin’s first state visit to the “hermit kingdom” in 24 years unfolded in Jun. 2024 where they signed a mutual defense pact that included a clause to provide military support should one of them be attacked. That kind of cooperation is one example of Putin fulfilling his declared policy of asymmetrical tactics in response to a continuation of economic, diplomatic, and military hostilities directed at Russia by the “collective West” and Zelensky as existential threats escalate into a potential World War 3 scenario.

Tensions with North Korea have escalated ever since the U.S. delivered the first of four U.S. Global Hawk spy aircraft in Dec. 2019 fulfilling an Obama administration deal in 2011 to assist the South with aerial surveillance of the North’s military activities, intermittent joint military drills conducted by U.S. and South Korean forces, and the deployment of a U.S. nuclear-armed submarine in the South as a show of force, all of which are considered threats by Kim Jong-Un. He responded with provocative missile testing within his nation’s borders, nuclear-capable missiles that fell into the Sea of Japan, and long-range ballistic missiles that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean.

Activity by North Korea ramped up this month with a “symbolic display of anger” after it claimed that the South flew a military drone over the capital of Pyongyang and located remnants of a drone in its territory. That was preceded  by the North launching balloons across the DMZ border carrying garbage and feces, and activists in the South sent balloons with Western food, flash drives with TV shows, leaflets that ridicule Kim Jong-Un, and they restarted loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts across the border starting in May.

Cartoon Ridiculing Kim Jong-Un

The result was Kim Jong-Un ordering the destruction of a highway and railroad line crossing the DMZ that was used for peaceful exchanges between families, economic development, and hopes of unification on the horizon.

North Korea blows up inter-Korean road and rail near border – NBC, Oct. 15

Making matters worse is three-fold with Kim Jong-Un calling out South Korea as a hostile foreign country, threatening to declare war on the South, and the South warning it can send arms to Ukraine after reports of a few thousand troops from the North being stationed in Russia to assist with logistics in the war with Ukraine. Since Russia’s special military operation launched in Ukraine in Feb. 2022, the South has mirrored U.S.-led sanctions against Moscow and provided humanitarian and financial support to Kyiv but avoided directly supplying weapons to Ukraine.

North Korea Threatens To Declare War With South Korea… “Earlier this month, Kim Jong-Un again warned he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the U.S. as he accused the countries of beefing up their military alliance. This includes the South Korea-U.S. deterrence guideline signed in July to integrate South Korean conventional capabilities with U.S. nuclear weapons to deal with Pyongyang’s repeated nuclear threats. The U.S. has around 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea.” – Newsweek, Oct. 19

“Nuclear Threat Club” Cartoon – Russia, North Korea, Iran

It is crystal clear to me that WW3 chessboard pieces are falling into place that now include the Middle East conflict between Israel and Iran with its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi, and various splinter groups throughout Syria and Iraq. Be sure your financial house is in order and a pantry is well-stocked with beans, bullion, bullets, and arms for self-defense and survival.

‘Superforecaster’ says World War III is about to begin and US will ‘collapse by 2032’… “Martin Armstrong has made the stark claims using AI-powered computer named ‘Socrates’ that he programed to monitors the world news feeds and looks for fundamental news events that correlate behind the global trends. Armstrong, who used Socrates to predict Japan’s 1989 real estate crash and Russia’s 1998 financial crisis, now believes the current conflict in Ukraine will cascade into a wider international conflict.” – Daily Mail U.K., Oct. 19

Psy’s “Gangnam Style” original is a mix with Laid Back’s 1983 “White Horse”:

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TraderStef on Twitter / Website: TraderStef.com