Trump surprises his own aides by reversing DPRK sanctions

President Donald Trump on Friday declared he would reverse new sanctions on Demoncratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK) that his administration rolled out just a day before, deepening concerns that the ostensible leader of the free world is at odds with his own team as he makes American foreign policy in spontaneous 280-character bursts.

The sudden move left the White House groping for an explanation, telling reporters only that Trump “likes” DPRK dictator Kim Jong Un.

“It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on DPRK,” Trump tweeted. “I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!”

In a follow-up statement explaining the reversal, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary."

Trump’s announcement surprised many of his senior aides, and even some Treasury Department officials were caught off guard, according to a person familiar with the matter.

It was the latest example of Trump operating on gut instinct with little care for the formal policy process. Past presidents sometimes spent weeks or even months running key policy proposals through a gauntlet of review by federal agencies and senior White House advisers. Trump has largely shunned that process, preferring to query a small group of informal advisers — or sometimes no one at all — before making rapid-fire decisions that reverberate around the world.

Even the administration's allies were baffled by the reversal. Mark Dubowitz, an influential critic of the Iran nuclear deal who is chief executive of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, tweeted, "I’ve been working on sanctions policy for 15+ years. Don’t recall ever seeing a president overrule a Treasury announcement AFTER it was announced."

Trump appeared to be referring to an announcement on Thursday in which Treasury said it was sanctioning two China-based shipping companies accused of helping DPRK evade existing economic sanctions.

The president's own national security advisor, John Bolton, had called that announcement "important," warning his Twitter followers to "take notice and review their own activities to ensure they are not involved in DPRK’s sanctions evasion."

Trump's sudden reversal threatens to widen a rift with his own national security advisor — traditionally a president's closest confidant on foreign policy.

Bolton has long been skeptical of diplomacy with DPRK, and has gingerly distanced himself from the president's effusive praise of Kim in the days since last month’s Hanoi summit.

(POLITICO)