Political polarization hinders talks with North Korea

By Troy Stangarone

In advance of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Joe Biden lamented the challenges of political polarization for advancing his agenda. In noting the near universal Republican opposition to the majority of his agenda and the lack of a Republican platform for governing that might allow room for compromise, Biden asked rhetorically, "I wonder what would be the Republican platform right now. What do you think?"

While much of Republican opposition to Biden and his agenda is driven by deepening political polarization in the United States, it does have implications for the administration's ability to pursue a positive agenda on North Korea.

North Korea policy has historically been an area of bipartisan cooperation in Washington. Congress in recent years has passed legislation strengthening U.S. sanctions on North Korea by overwhelming majorities, but as the history of Iran sanctions demonstrates, removing those sanctions can be much more challenging.

When the Obama administration negotiated the Iran nuclear deal, Congress used its authority over international commerce to pass the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. Despite the Iran agreement not being a formal treaty, Congress was able to use the Review Act to attempt to scuttle the deal. All 54 Republicans in the Senate and all 256 Republicans in the House voted against the Iran nuclear deal.

Republicans were not alone in voting against the Iran deal. Four Senate Democrats, including current Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and 19 House Democrats voted against the agreement.

The Obama administration was able to implement the Iran deal due to a quirk in the Senate rules allowing members to filibuster legislation ― in essence, to prevent it from coming to the floor for a vote. In the absence of the filibuster, majorities in both chambers of Congress were in disapproval of the agreement.

Any agreement with North Korea, of course, would be potentially different, but with a 50-50 Senate, Biden would need the support of 10 Republicans to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, if Congress were to pass a review act for a North Korea agreement, or need to pass legislation to implement the agreement.

With only a six-vote majority in the House, Biden would have little room to maneuver in either chamber. This situation limits the options of the administration on U.S. sanctions relief. While Biden or members of the cabinet have the ability temporarily to waive certain U.S. sanctions, most U.S. sanctions cannot be removed permanently without Congressional legislation.

Because of the Iran experience, North Korea would likely want a formal treaty with the United States to ensure that the next administration will not simply withdraw from the agreement as the Trump administration did with the Iran nuclear deal. However, securing the 67 votes need for the Senate to approve a treaty seems unlikely in the current political environment.

In earlier periods, building such a bipartisan coalition would have been possible, but the current Republican Party is in a place that makes it extremely challenging to compromise. Nearly 50 percent of Republicans view Democrats as enemies rather than political opponents (and unfortunately, a significant number of Democrats share that view of Republicans).

Former President Donald Trump also complicates the political dynamics. He has made belief, or at least acceptance, of the fiction that the election was stolen from him a litmus test for being a Republican ― a test many rank-and-file Republicans seem willing to endorse.

Even when Senate Republicans have tried maneuvers to undermine the Biden administration's domestic agenda, as was the case in using the recently passed infrastructure bill to divide Democrats over the Build Back Better plan, Trump has pushed back. In that case, enough Republicans supported the infrastructure bill, but courage in the face of Trump's criticism is not a quality in large store at the moment.

How Republicans approach an agreement on North Korea will likely reflect Trump's views and how willing he is to be critical of an agreement. North Korea was one of the few foreign policy areas where Trump put his personal effort and prestige into an agreement. In the aftermath of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the uncertainty around Russia's potential invasion of Ukraine, any agreement that was not extremely favorable to the United States would only create an opportunity for Trump to paint Biden as a weak president.

Even if political polarization were to decline in the near future, a Republican Party that returned to its historical norms would remain skeptical of North Korea's willingness to keep its end of any agreement. Such skepticism is shared by many Democrats as well.

Political polarization isn't the only factor hindering talks with Pyongyang. The pandemic and North Korea's own reluctance to even engage in talks remain factors that hinder progress, but political polarization ― and what might be achievable in the current environment ― is a factor that the United States, South Korea and North Korea need to consider if talks are to be revived.

Troy Stangarone (ts@keia.org) is the senior director of congressional affairs and trade at the Korea Economic Institute.