Kim Jong-Un ‘Played’ Donald Trump, ‘Ego-Stroking’ Him To ‘Keep Bromance Alive,’ Former CIA Station Chief Says

Since their summit meeting in Singapore on June 12, North Korea has taken no significant steps toward eliminating its nuclear arsenal. The day after the meeting Trump declared the country “no longer a nuclear threat,” as Inquisitr reported. Trump has continued to praise the repressive North Korean regime’s autocratic ruler Kim Jong-Un in part because Kim has masterfully “played” Trump, according to a former CIA official who served as the agency’s station chief in Asia.

“Since their first meeting in Singapore in June, Kim has consistently outmaneuvered his counterpart,” wrote former CIA official Kent Harrington, in an article published last week by Project Syndicate and co-written by national security reporter John Walcott. “Trump may still fancy himself a world-class dealmaker, but the truth is that Kim – like Russian President Vladimir Putin – has got Trump’s number.”

Since the summit, Kim has sent what are apparently highly flattering letters to Trump, in what has turned out to be a successful effort to win Trump’s favor by flattering him. At a campaign rally in September, according to NBC News, Trump declared that he had Kim were “in love.”

“We went back and forth, then we fell in love. He wrote me beautiful letters,” Trump declared ate West Virginia rally. “And they are great letters. We fell in love.”

Just two weeks after the June summit meeting, satellite imagery showed that, far from “denuclearizing,” North Korea was actually upgrading its nuclear facilities, as Inquisitr reported.

Nonetheless, in October, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that a second summit meeting between Trump and Kim was under negotiation and would take place “as soon as possible,” according to The Washington Post.

“Trump’s narcissism, hunger for the spotlight, and desperation to match former President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize are all that Kim needs to know about the man,” Harrington wrote. “His ego-stroking personal letters to Trump show that he has a good fix on the president’s psyche. So far, he has proved to be highly effective at keeping the bromance alive, and the forthcoming summit on track.”

Trump’s recently-appointed national security adviser John Bolton said in late October that the second Trump-Kim summit was nowunlikely to happen before the end of 2018 and Kim and his advisers had stalled on setting a date and place for the meeting, according to the Korea JoongAng Daily newspaper.

“Regardless of when the second summit occurs, the North Korean regime will continue to reap dividends at America’s expense in the meantime,” Harrington and Walcott wrote. “It is time for the self-described master of the ‘art of the deal’ to admit that he doesn’t have one.”