U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed abuses by Kim Jong-un’s regime in an interview following his summit with the North Korean leader, saying that other countries had also done “bad things.”
“A lot of other people [have] done some really bad things. I mean, I could go through a lot of nations where a lotta bad things were done,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox News. He praised Mr. Kim as “a very smart guy” and “a great negotiator,” saying that “I think we understand each other.”
According to Mr. Trump’s own State Department, Mr. Kim’s regime holds between 80,000 and 1, 20,000 political prisoners in forced labor camps, facing torture and forced starvation.
Orchestrating brother’s assassination?
As well as abuses at home, Mr. Kim is also suspected of ordering the assassination of his brother at a Malaysian airport last year.
Mr. Trump also had kind words for Chinese President Xi Jinping in the interview, describing him as “an incredible guy” and noting that he is “essentially President for life. That’s pretty good.”
