Did the U.S. Really Pay North Korea 'Extortion' Money For 25 Years? Fact-Checking Trump's Tweet

It is deeply important to fact check and to question in an ongoing what we are hearing here in America, especially from our leadership. It is vital to hone our capacity for discernment, to have the courage and take the time to dig deeply, and to embody a profound commitment to truth. These times also demand of each of us a profound commitment to peace and resistance to all propaganda that seeks to pull us into a catastrophic war. - Molly

President Donald Trump wrote a puzzling tweet claiming the U.S. had been paying "extortion money" to North Korea for 25 years.

By SOFIA LOTTO PERSIO

President Donald Trump dedicated his first tweet of the day on Wednesday to the ongoing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, claiming that “talking is not the answer” in dealing with the North Korean regime.

“The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!” he wrote.

The statement is puzzling as it contradicts multiple statements by Pentagon and State Department officials who champion diplomatic efforts over military action, but also because of its reference to “extortion money” being paid “for 25 years.”

Fact-checking this statement means unpacking the three claims contained within it: that the U.S. has been talking to North Korea for 25 years, that the U.S. has been somehow financially supporting North Korea for 25 years, and that talks have been inconclusive.

Diplomatic Efforts Begin in 1993

Let’s go back some 25 years. At the end of 1991, North and South Korea had signed an agreement binding them to work towards the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and the following year Pyongyang concluded a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and took steps to disclose information about its nuclear program.

But following IAEA demand for special inspections, North Korea suddenly changed direction, threatening to withdraw its membership in the agency it joined in 1974.

It was on June 2, 1993 that the U.S. first put together a negotiating team under the leadership of Assistant Secretary of State Robert L. Gallucci at the U.S. United Nations Mission in New York to meet a North Korean delegation.

That was the beginning of a complex and sometimes extremely tense relationship. After nine days, the U.S. and North Korea issued a first joint statement in which the U.S. granted assurances against the use of force and interference in Pyongyang’s affairs, while North Korea renewed its commitment to the IAEA and its inspectors.

The crisis was averted through talks but this lasted only for about a year and in June 1994 North Korea again announced its withdrawal from the IAEA. This crisis prompted former President Jimmy Carter to get involved.

U.S. Aid 1995–2008, With Some Interruptions

Carter went to Pyongyang against President Bill Clinton’s wishes and negotiated an agreement that laid the basis for Trump's claims of money paid to North Korea. Clinton would eventually agree to the Carter deal, signing the Agreed Framework in October 1994. This involved lifting sanctions in exchange for aid in the form of 500,000 tons of oil a year and $4 billion toward the construction of a light-water reactor capable of producing nuclear energy (but no nuclear weapons), and establishing the multilateral consortium Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. In exchange, Pyongyang would abandon its the nuclear development programme and collaborate with the IAEA inspections.

“Although criticized by some for not resolving every issue on the Korean Peninsula, the Agreed Framework ended the immediate crisis and prevented the North from realizing its potential to develop dozens of nuclear bombs,” recalled Madeleine Albright, who was U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations at the time the deal was negotiated, in her memoir about her time as Secretary of State, Madam Secretary.

The deal was never fully implemented and, despite several rounds of talks with the U.S., North Korea eventually restarted its nuclear weapons program. By 2003 the deal was completely abandoned when North Korea admitted having a clandestine program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. The U.S. continued to hold talks with North Korea under the six-party talks framework that involved China, Japan, Russia and South Korea and a certain amount of aid continued to be delivered to Pyongyang in various forms.

A new agreement was signed in 2005 in which Pyongyang pledged to scrap its nuclear program in exchange for economic and energy aid. That deal finally unraveled in 2008, as Reuters mentioned in 2013 in an article Trump should be aware of, as he shared it on Twitter at the time.

According to a 2014 report from the Congressional Research Service, between 1995 and 2008, the United States provided North Korea with more than $1.3 billion in aid: slightly more than 50 percent for food and about 40 percent for energy assistance.

But since early 2009 the U.S. has provided “virtually no aid to North Korea, though episodically there have been discussions about resuming large-scale food aid.” Diplomatic efforts too have mostly been limited to a mechanism known as the "New York channel," sending messages to one another through their U.N. delegations—most recently discussing Americans detained in North Korea, as CNN reported earlier this month.

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