[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 99 (Thursday, June 14, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H5160]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NORTH KOREAN NEGOTIATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Sherman) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, for 22 years, I have served on the Foreign 
Affairs Committee and focused on North Korea. For two decades I have 
urged the toughest possible pressure not only on North Korea, but on 
China, North Korea's lifeline.
  Just last month I joined Chairman Yoho of the Asia Subcommittee, 
where I serve as ranking member, in sending a letter insisting that we 
have tougher enforcement of our sanctions on large Chinese banks and 
other entities that supplied the necessary services to Kim Jong-un.
  When the possibility of a summit was announced, the foreign policy 
community came forward with a unified message: No concessions until we 
get CVID, or the complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of 
North Korea's nuclear program.
  I found myself on the dovish edge of the foreign policy community. 
While I supported tougher sanctions, I believe that we should settle 
for a verifiable limit, a freeze and monitoring, a system where there 
is no cheating and where we can be sure that they are not selling their 
nuclear weapons to other even more dangerous parties.
  So I eagerly awaited Singapore. What we saw was a President that put 
into practice what he wrote about when he wrote his famous book, newly 
reissued and retitled, Trump: The Art of the Capitulation.
  What are the steps in capitulation?
  First, give the other side just about everything.
  Second, accept in return vague platitudes.
  Third, go on TV and announce that you have got the best deal ever.
  What did we get from North Korea?
  A temporary suspension of their most extreme barbarism. They agreed 
to release and did release three hostages. They said they will allow us 
to look for the bodies of our fallen heroes from the Korean War. They 
did not release the Japanese hostages, but they did release three 
American hostages.
  They implicitly agreed, though not explicitly, to an end of testing. 
But testing is hardly necessary once you have already proven your 
capacity. Russia has the capacity to destroy American cities, but they 
haven't tested a nuclear weapon since 1990. Why? They proved it long 
ago.
  Likewise, North Korea has proven the capacity of its nuclear weapons. 
They don't need further testing. They have missiles that can kill tens 
of thousands of Americans and millions of our allies in Tokyo, Seoul, 
and elsewhere in Asia. They have the capacity to smuggle their nuclear 
weapons near or into any of our West Coast cities. They have that 
capacity. They don't need further testing.
  So they have given very little, but they gave one more thing. They 
pronounced the word denuclearization. This is the epitome of a vague 
platitude. For when North Korea says denuclearization, they say will 
give up their nuclear weapons when the whole world gives up its nuclear 
weapons; when, in the words of the Good Book, swords are beaten into 
plowshares.
  So what have we given up?
  First, we gave them what the Kim dynasty has always wanted: that 
face-to-face equality with an American President.
  Second, we have relaxed our sanctions, in effect.
  No, the statutes haven't changed. But those big banks that Chairman 
Yoho and myself as ranking member once sanctioned, no way that is going 
to happen. Businesspeople in Moscow and Beijing know it is now time to 
move forward with business deals with North Korea.
  Also, he declared our military exercises to be provocative. What does 
that mean worldwide when an American President says: We better not 
train our troops; that is warlike?
  In the words, of Admiral Stavridis, who wrote in Time Magazine just a 
few days ago: ``These are operational military exercises in which 
ships, aircraft, and ground forces . . . practice executing defined war 
plans.'' To have our forces forward deployed without the benefit of 
that kind of practice would be negligent in the extreme and would lead 
to major combat losses in a real fight.
  Trump is saying these exercises are expensive. It is hardly expensive 
to train our troops.
  We have got a long way to go. We need to enforce the sanctions and 
make them tougher. We have to do this until we get a complete 
declaration of their nuclear materials, a verification, and a freeze.

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