North Korea’s latest anti-American propaganda video includes a brief image of former President Donald Trump as a predatory “U.S. imperialist” enemy, a touch that confused some subjects of the communist regime, as Trump had been depicted in a more positive light in previous videos.
The video, incorporated into the mandatory weekly political harangues that North Korea’s captive citizens must endure, shows Trump as one of the “U.S. imperialists and other hierarchical enemies are trying to recreate the bloodshed of the past on this land.”
The bloodshed that the video’s narrator refers to would be the Korean War of 1950-53.
“The only thing that has changed is that the various methods of how they kill and the weapons of murder they used that day are now covered in a sweet and fragrant outer shell, including movies, printed propaganda, superstitions, and drugs,” the propaganda video narrator raves as a photo of Trump shaking hands with dictator Kim Jong-un appears in the background.
The indoctrination lecture incorporating this video was titled “Guide To the Anti-DPRK Plot.” Paranoid political screeds are par for the course in North Korea, but some of the people forced to watch this particular presentation were surprised that Trump was depicted as one of the plotters, the implication being that his historic meeting with Kim was just a fake-out intended to obscure nonstop American skullduggery.
One North Korean told Radio Free Asia (RFA) he was “shocked” to see Trump portrayed as a villain after years of the regime touting Trump’s 2019 diplomatic outreach as a positive development.
“These days, the party’s regular lectures are held by watching recorded videos. This week’s lecture was conducted as a recorded lecture with the message that dreaming about American imperialism leads to self-destruction and death,” the North Korean resident said.
“The point of this lecture from the beginning to the end was to never to be caught up in the enemy’s persistent anti-DPRK conspiracy strategy,” he elaborated. “The authorities requested that we raise awareness of impure recordings, anti-socialism publications, drugs, religion, and superstitions that the enemy are spreading to destroy our republic from within.”
RFA’s source said his neighbors were equally baffled that the regime would suddenly denounce Trump as “headlining an anti-DPRK strategy” after years of saying it was “a great thing that Kim Jong-un and the U.S. president met and joined hands.”
Another North Korean resident said most of his fellow serfs “do not even listen to the authorities’ propaganda that the United States has launched an anti-DPRK plot to destroy our republic from within.”
A fiery anti-Trump editorial in the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Tuesday suggested the Kim regime wants to rebuke Trump for playing up his relationship with Kim on the campaign trail.
“No matter what administration takes office in the U.S., the political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this,” the KCNA editorial sneered.
The state media outlet foreclosed hope of improved relations with a prospective second Trump administration by saying Trump would offer nothing but “sinister attempts and dialogue as an extension of confrontation.”
KCNA offered Trump a bit of lukewarm applause by saying he “tried to reflect the special personal relations between the heads of states” but then complained he did not achieve “any substantial positive change” in U.S.-North Korean relations as president.
Kim reportedly sent a personal message of sympathy to Trump after the attempt on his life at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13. During his speech at the Republican National Convention the following week, Trump suggested Kim wants him to win the 2024 election.
“I get along with him. He’d like to see me back, too. I think he misses me if you wanna know the truth,” Trump said in a moment of jocularity that appears to have irked North Korean propagandists.
Former North Korean diplomat Ri Il-gyu, who defected to South Korea in November, told South Korea’s Yonhap News on Tuesday that despite its protestations, the Kim regime is “eagerly awaiting Trump’s re-election” because its relations with China have soured, so better relations with the U.S. might be to its advantage.
“For North Korea, it is not a top priority to recover its ties with China. The North’s primary goal is to elicit the maximum benefit from Russia and map out its strategies to brace for Trump’s possible return,” Ri said. “North Korea believes China does not make it live well, but it also thinks Beijing would not let it die of hunger.”
Former Trump National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said on Tuesday that Kim might be interested in restoring his “bromance” with Trump if the latter returns to the White House.
McMaster predicted:
Then what he’s going to do right after that is he’s going to say, “Hey, I’ve got a deal for you. I’m going to satisfy your impulse toward retrenchment, and in exchange for U.S. forces leaving the peninsula and just letting me have only just a few nukes, I will stop my long-range ballistic missile program, and I’ll limit my nuclear program.”
“He’s going to hope to get something like an Iran nuclear deal – a terrible deal for the United States. He won’t get that from a Trump administration, but he’s posturing himself for that,” McMaster said of Kim.