Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 8/19/26 Tim Shorrock on Trump’s Policy Towards North and South Korea

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

Scott brings Tim Shorrock back on the show to dig into the latest developments between Trump and the leaders of both South Korea and North Korea. They discuss the specifics and the broader historical context behind these latest moves. Discussed on the show: Empire Blues with Tim Shorrock Tim Shorrock is the author of Spies For Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing and a regular contributor to The Nation and the Korea Center for Investigative Reporting. Follow him on Twitter @TimothyS and subscribe to his Substack.  Sign up for the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom at scotthortonacademy.com For more on Scott's work: Check out The Libertarian Institute: https://www.libertarianinstitute.org Check out Scott's other show, Provoked, with Darryl Cooper https://youtube.com/@Provoked_Show Read Scott's books: Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine https://amzn.to/43D82oY (The audiobook of Provoked is being published in sections at https://scotthortonshow.com) Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism: https://amzn.to/4eMQblu Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan https://amzn.to/4a5fKvx Follow Scott on X @scotthortonshow And check out Scott’s full interview archives: https://scotthorton.org/all-interviews This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tax Attorney Matt Sercely https://agoristtaxadvice.com; Moon Does Artisan Coffee https://scotthorton.org/coffee; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom https://www.libertyclassroom.com/dap/a/?a=1616 and Dissident Media https://dissidentmedia.com; and Crowdhealth https://www.joincrowdhealth.com/ (use promocode Horton) You can also support Scott’s work by making a one-time or recurring donation at https://scotthorton.org/donate/ or https://patreon.com/scotthortonshow Audio cleaned up with the Podsworth app: https://podsworth.com Use code HORTON50 for 50% off your first order at Podsworth.com to clean up your voice recordings, sound like a pro, and also support the Scott Horton Show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen of the press have been less than honest. Reporting to the American people, what's going on in this country? Because the babies are making this. We're dealing with Hitler Revisited. This is the Scott Horton Show. Libertarian foreign policy, mostly. When the president visit, that means that it is not illegal. We're going to take out seven countries in five years.

They don't know what the fuck they're doing. Negotiate now. End this war. And now, here's your host, Scott Porton. All right, you guys. For the first time in a while, we're very lucky to have Tim Shoreock on the show. And, of course, he's the author of the book Spies for Hire,

and is a great journalist and expert, especially on Korea because he was raised there. And so why did I got to meet a bunch of Koreans? I'll just ask Tim. He knows all about this stuff. He's been a good friend of the show for many years here. And, oh, here, let me share my screen. Because on my screen I have here for you guys to see, Wall Street Journal News, that's not the first thing I want to show you.

I want to show you Empire Blues with Tim Sharke. This is his great substack, Empire Blues. And I know you've been mostly writing about history, so we're going to talk a little bit about that. And then we do have this news here is Trump pushes for Kim Jong-un meeting this year, but then followed by North Korea, rejects Trump's cut of drills with South Korea as an empty gesture. So a little bit of a cold shoulder there.

The subhead does say, though, that they say that ties between Trump and Kim are strong. So at least there's that. And this is, I've long thought that this is, I won't say Trump's greatest strength because it's not that he's that good at it, but at least this is where his heart really seems to be in the right place. And we're really a solution potentially. could really be within reach compared to a situation, an intractable type situation, like between Russia and Ukraine right now, where the whole thing, as we discussed this back

years ago, over various eras now that I think about it, different sets of old days here, Tim, that the main problem has been all along that America says, disarm first, and then we'll talk about maybe being friends. And Trump was willing to turn that upside down for a minute, but he didn't really follow through and stick with that in his first term. But it seems like that's the question is whether he'd be willing to go for some kind of real normalization and then hope for the best when it comes to the nuclear weapons issue later or whether he's just going to be Barack Obama about the damn thing and accomplish nothing. But I don't know whether in the second term, whether any diplomacy has taken place yet at all or what. So I don't know what you know at all. Please tell me, sir.

Well, he said the other day that there had been a response. to his call for an end, or his demand for North Korea military exercises. And he said there had been a response, but in Jong-on's sister said, they had they had applied. And like you said, was it kind of mixed, well, they said basically there's no chance of talking until the U.S. gives up what they go, have always called the hostile policy toward them. But, you know, they left the door a little bit open,

and so I think there's a promise of possibility there that something could happen, but it wasn't really done like last time when he did this. He did this in more cooperation with the South Korean leader at the time when, you know, Moon J.N., when we talked about that long, and that was going on. But that was sort of at Moon's suggestion that, in fact, Moon brought the message from North Korea that they'd be willing to talk from. And that started the ball rolling.

This time, he kind of came out of this out of the blue, apparently because, you know, he's, you know, really losing popularity because of the war in Iran and lots of other things. But the war in Iran is left and kind of looking at health wasn't ridiculous. And so I think he's hoping to get some kind of movement here in getting some negotiations going with the good North Korea. So, and, you know, what I've been pointing out, I'll ask a place on social media at least is that, you know, President Lee in South Korea is also kind of like Moon. You know, they were in the same party,

and they've always wanted an engagement with North Korea to bring an end to the Korean world. And he had, you know, that last speech, he made the suggestion that the U.S. and South Korea curtail their war games. So they're a sin on this. And, you know, when he was in Washington earlier this year, you know, Lee and Trump met and, you know, mostly they talked about trade and all the issues around tariffs and demand for Trump's demand for South Korea to invest more. But they also, you know, he encouraged, you know, he said he would assist the U.S. in any way possible to get talks going to Greek, which he would very badly, he very badly wants that to happen too. So, you know, it sounds like, you know, maybe, maybe they could make some kind of opening to North Korea and say, you know, willing to drop our options. policy or something that I would convince them to, you know, come, come in talk.

But it remains to be seen. Yeah. People call me all kinds of nasty things. But one thing good about me, they have to admit, I'm a publisher of really great books. Okay, five of them are my own, but 15 of them more are not. And they're by such great authors as Ken Silva and Charles Squoiette and Joseph Solis Mullins and Keith Knight and William B. Van Wagonin and Gary Vogler and Thomas E. Woods and Lori Calhoun and the great James

Bovard and more Keith Knight and me and Sheldon and Will libertarian institute.org slash books. Hey guys. Me here for crowdhealth at join crowdhealth.com slash Horton. And the deal is this. You need health care, but you can't afford health insurance because who possibly can. I can't. But so here is a great solution and alternative to health insurance. Basically, the way it works is you join up, you pay a monthly fee, and then you pay cash for the first $500 of your health care costs on any one thing. But then you get to crowdsource the rest. And then when it's somebody else's turn, you help crowdsource for them.

And the more you help others, the more they help you. It's just a great alternative to health insurance in these insanely, highly regulated and inflationary time. So learn all about it at Join CrowdHealth. So tell me now, Tim, like how difficult it would be compared to Undermoon in terms of South Korean politics to get sort of an alliance between them and Trump working together and singing from the same hymn and the same time kind of thing about how to approach this. Is it, I know there's some, you know, obvious headway and I don't know if you'd call it right-wing

nationalism or whatever, opposition to those kind of sentiments. and they're very strong in the South. Well, what's interesting about Trump's proposal is that I don't really think he knows that much about what's going on with South Korea, except what he's told by certain advisors of this because the Maga people in Congress and even in this government, in the administration,

are really, you know, trying to undermine the South Korean government. of wheat and in all kinds of ways economically and and they of course you know there's all these accusations that he's a he's an agent of the CCP in China and you know basically trying to help China take over South Korea which is all ridiculous but that's the position of the South Korean far far right which has become more allowed in part because they've received all this support from, you know, Maga forces in the U.S. And, you know, like the ambassador that he appointed, Trump appointed this Korean-American woman is part of that. And, you know, they think this is a real leftist government. But, you know, so strangely, it's the right-wing opposition party

that doesn't want to have the, you know, go forward with talks with North Korea. on deluclearization or a peace deal. And they were very much against Moon before as well. There's a lot of weird politics going on here. But the thing is, you know, I think South Korea government right now and Trump are kind of in sync on the need to, you know, have negotiations with North Korea. And I think that it's great. A lot of South Korean officials and their national security advisor and, you know, Lee's prime minister and others have been talking about, you know, recognize basically making it more like around arms control as opposed to forcing them to this denuclearization because North Korea is not going to.

get rid of its news. It's just not. And they've made that clear. They keep saying that. They're not going to do it. And I think, you know, when they see Trump and Israel, you know, attacking Iran and makes them feel much more justified than having nuclear weapons. And so I don't think that's going to change. But if they will change their, you know, like making conditions for talks, you know, without that you have to, you, you have to, you know, commit to denuclearization, I think there's a very good possibility that they could make some progress there.

You know, what's really changed from what happened for in 2018, 2019, is that after Biden made this, made this, trilateral military partnership alliance with Japan and South Korea. You may remember, this was in 2023. And it was only after that that Kim Jong-Lun went to Russia to meet with Putin and started this, renewed their kind of military alliance from long ago, and then declared. that Ken Jong-un declared, and this became part of their, you know, constitution, that South and North Korea are not going to be unified anymore, unless there's some kind of a war,

and that they should henceforth go forward as two separate nation states. and without any idea of reunifying the two states. They're separate and right now hostile. That's how he views it. And some Koreans actually interpreted that as a peace gesture saying, okay, let's cut a deal and make some demilitarization agreement or normalization agreement as two different states. you know, and so I think that that situation, under that situation, you know, really solid talks between the U.S. leadership and the North Korean leadership, you know, could bring about, you know, an important agreement to normalize relations.

And if that happened, you know, maybe North Korea would recognize South Korea. as more of an equal. Because right now they just, I think they gave up and talking in South Korea after 29, when the deal went, when the deal went bused that Trump was trying to negotiate with Kim, Kim Jong-un. And they just saw, you know, South Korea is just a tool of the U.S., inability, unable to work as a sovereign state as an independent country, and just controlled by the U.S.

And that's what they concluded. And there was no reason to continue their talks. So, you know, if they'd go at it as like, okay, we're going to be two separate states and the U.S. will, you know, cut some kind of peace agreement, you know, with North Korea. And that could lead to a formal end of the Korean War, which would involve, of course, you know, China because the three parties that signed the armistice, the end of Korean War in 1953 was you know, the China people's volunteers, it wasn't the official Chinese army,

but the army that went into Korea, and the North Korean Army and the U.S. There are the three signatures, signatories to the armistice. South Korea did not sign, but did sign as part of the U.S. controlled U.N. demand, right? So with all those changes, you know, maybe there's a possibility that, you know, Trump could get an agreement.

I think it's also important to remember that. I don't know why he doesn't say this because, you know, the last one really went down. It didn't work out in Hanoi in 2019. They had this deal on the table. And, you know, it was basically John Bolton killed. you know, that Trump now thinks, well, they managed to get them convicted or get them to plead guilty to stealing national security secrets, right? But Trump's been extremely critical of Bolton.

And, you know, but Bolton really was the one who, you know, did away with that group, made sure that it even never happened, under which North Korea would have given up, you know, a large section of its nuclear industry, basically, its nuclear military nuclear weapon industry in exchange for a lifting of sanctions. And, you know, Bolton thought that would be really dangerous to U.S. national security and persuaded Trump to not sign it.

And I guess Pompeo did also, but it was more of a Bolton Bolton played a very important role in that. So that did away with, you know, his last attempt. And so he doesn't have any, he doesn't have a hardliner like Bolton advising him now. He has, I think his closest advisor on Korea is probably Eldridge Colby, you know, who sort of wants, who's been pushing this idea of U.S. forces in Korea. of refocus their, you know, capabilities on China as opposed to North Korea. And so, and they also want to make Japan more of the center of U.S. military operations in Northeast Asia, I think.

You know, they don't want to phase out U.S. forces. They want them to be not so much directed in terms of, you know, enforcement. seeing the armistice and confronting North Korea. They want to focus more on China. Hmm, man. Hey, look, Scott Horton Show and Scott Horton Academy, swag. All you got to do is go to the YouTube and then look right underneath the YouTube. There's swag for sale.

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Just go to Scottwharton.org slash coffee. Scott Horton.org slash coffee. The Scott Horton show is brought to you by Matt Sersely, tax attorney. And this guy, he's anti-government like you. Only he's a tax attorney. And so if you own a small business or you're a high-salorie professional and you're trying to avoid paying the revenues, he'll help you. No gimmicks here.

you have to follow the law, but nobody knows it better than him. And he will make sure that you don't pay one red cent, whatever that's worth, more than you have to to the revenues every year. So check out Matt Sersely at agoristtaxadvice.com. And Tom, Scott sent you. All right. Well, there's a lot there. And I mean, I guess if we start with the last point first, that I think as we discussed before, one of the reasons that America has not sought to normalize relations with North Korea

is because they like hold them over the head of South Korea and Japan so that they let us stay. But really the reason we want them to let us stay is for containing China. But North Korea sort of becomes the stand-in and the excuse where if they, and maybe they know that too, but they don't want to say, yes, keep your bases in our country because we're worried about China because that looks bad. So instead they say it's about North Korea in a way and kind of cover their public relations base as far as annoying the Chinese there. But then you're saying that in fact, they might, the hawks now, the China Hawks now might think that actually containing North Korea is too much of a hassle and that it'd be better to just turn away from North Korea to kind of put that problem at least on the back burner just to free up their forces. for confronting China more.

And I hear you right? Yes, and I think they also believe that South Korea has, you know, perfect capability to defend itself against North Korea, which they do. I mean, South Korea has a pretty large military. I think it's, I don't know, it's fifth or six largest in the world. And, of course, it makes, you know, a lot of advanced weapons in cooperation with the U.S. And of course, it's playing an important role in the U.S. military industrial complex by, you know, lending its technology investments to shipbuilding, military shipbuilding here in the U.S. That's part of this new relationship that's developed.

But it's Japan that's most hawkish on China, you know, under this new leader, Takahichi, she's, you know, she really angered the Chinese, you know, by saying, you know, Japan would, you know, come with the aid of Taiwan. And that was the first time, you know, any Japanese prime minister said something like that. This was last year. And so the animosity of China is, you know, directed mostly towards Japan and, you know, vice versa. I think, I mean, Japan is still concerned about foreign weapons and, you know, its missile capability in that. But I think there, see, they're more strategic. you know, opponent is China.

Whereas South Korea, you know, I mean, as we speak, the Chinese foreign ministers in Seoul today, you know, meeting within the lead government. So, you know, I think there's a lot more dialogue in cooperation between South Korea and China than Japan. But, you know, I think the U.S., as you said, you know, uses this threat as a way to, you know, justify and keep asking for, you know, long-term military presence in both countries.

It's also really crucial what you said there, too, about how they've really lowered the sites. Forget, you know, Kumbaya and reunification. You have two very powerful regimes in the north and the south, neither of which one had turned their half of the country over to the other to rule. So reunification, obviously, they would be very difficult. And it's not like the North Koreans are just on their knees begging the South Koreans to absorb them under their rule or this kind of thing.

So but then you're saying by lowering the standard there, they actually put the whole thing, you know, actual fruitful negotiations right in range. Because, you know, never mind all that pie in the sky stuff. Now we're just talking about various security guarantees. Maybe we get a final end to the war, real. peace deal to end the Korean War instead of just this armistice, kind of half-assed ceasefire thing, and move very slowly, right?

And this was the case going back to John Bolton helping sabotage the thing. I mean, one of the things there, I think, at the time was, and I forget if this was in Vietnam or in Singapore, where Stephen Began was the guy at state or on the NSC, I guess, who had given a speech about how, well, maybe we put denuclearization second and just try to get to normalization first. And then at that same meeting where John Bolton goes, yeah, it'll be just like the Libya example, right,

where this guy got lynched and murdered on the side of the road. And then there's Stephen Began is sitting in the back row and he doesn't get to talk and he's not driving. So that's, you know, really important. And I think that was in, yeah, that had to have been in Vietnam because in Singapore, Bolton wasn't there. Trump had learned lesson too late and banished him literally to outer Mongolia while he was debating them or while he was talking with them at the second meeting, but the second meeting didn't

get any further than the first. And I don't remember why, I don't know if you do, why the second one fell apart without Bolton there that time. It was just too late, I guess. But, you know, the other thing that happened there was that if you remember that, you know, the Democrats were really going after Trump on, at the time on. I forget what he had Stephen Cohen. Yeah, they had his lawyer, Stephen Cohen testifying again.

In the moment, yeah. It really, I mean, they timed it because they didn't like these talks with North Korea. I mean, you know, Pelosi was just, you know, she was awful on this issue. Yeah. And like, here he is, you know, trying to cut this deal. And he was really distracted. by these, you know, here? Did I say Stephen Cohen?

Because that's different. I meant Michael Cohen. Michael Cole. Right. So you know, the other thing, too, was they had, this came up on a show I did with Brandon Weicker earlier today, too, was, remember they had this massive, you can tell, like, the email went out, and it's kind of a little sociology experiment.

See just how many people are on that email list, actually. I'm sure not on it. But clearly what happened was they all got a netherly. email and said, here's the narrative. Trump is going to give away the store because Kim Jong-un is so wily of a negotiator and Trump is such a dunderhead that the North Korean dictator, because Trump is so enamored with dictators, this one is just going to walk all over him. And Trump is just essentially any concession that Trump's, that Trump gives in will amount to high treason against the American people and all of that. So at the same time, they got to be a lot of,

his lawyer testifying against him. They also have the narrative set up where there's just no support behind what he's doing here at all. And they say that he's the most naive fool in the whole world for daring to pursue it, which made it really hurt, you know, at the time. And that's what they're saying now. I mean, you know, Senator Mark Kelly was,

they're all bringing up this, you know, they're all going after him up from the right on this. You know, because of this statement today or yesterday? Oh, yeah, yeah, because of what, calling off the joint drills. And there's, you know, all these neocon groups in Washington are all in flames about that. They think these drills are great. And they, you know, what the U.S. Press doesn't talk about is, and they're not just practicing, you know, like what happens in another preamore.

They practice stuff like, you know, decapitation of the leadership. They run through these drills about how they would do that, you know. so, you know, assassinate leaders like they did in Iran, right? That's part of what they do. You know, what would they do in how to go capture, you know, nuclear facilities or things like that in case of war? I mean, they really run through some really dangerous kind of possibilities of war that could have. And naturally, you know, I mean, I've been saying this for a long time. as peace activists here have also been saying that, you know, there's a natural reason that the North Koreans do not, you know, really fear these exercises.

Because after all, you know, the U.S. is the most powerful military in the world. And South Korea is pretty high up there, too. And they have these two forces. And now linked with Japan, that relationship with Japan military still, you know, continues. is. You know, of course, if you hear these kind of exercises, we'd want them greatly reduced.

I mean, they've been talking about this for weeks since these led up to the exercises that were launched just the other day, the old G freedom, you know, freedom exercises, as they call them, you know,

which were reduced, but they're still going on. Apparently, the news I read today was that the agree to cut them in half or, you know, I forgot how long they were going to be. But, you know, these are massive exercises, which are the biggest military exercises in the world. And they've been going on for years and years and years, decades. And it's not, you know, it adds to the militaristic, you know, situation on the Korean Peninsula.

and reducing them would be a brand of benefit. It could help create the atmosphere for talk. All right. We're out of time, Tim. I've got to run. Okay. Please check out Tim's excellent website, all his great articles,

Empire Blues with Tim Shoreock. And here he's, I know you're working on a great history book. And here you have the Nagasaki bomb. the Division of Korea and all this other great historical stuff there. And I'm actually behind. I get all your emails and I'm like, oh, man, I got to get Tim here soon. But you are in my bookmark, sir, and I'll be catching up on all this stuff. And it's just so great to talk to you again.

I really appreciate you doing the show. Great to talk to you, Scott. Thank you so much. Absolutely. The Scott Horton show is brought to you by the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom, Roberts & Roberts, Brokerage, Inc., Moondos, Artisan Coffee, Tom Woods Liberty Classroom and APS Radio News. Subscribe in all the usual places and check out my books.

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