"DPRK Today" Endorses Donald Trump?

Last week scholar Han Yong Mook took the pages of DPRK Today to write an op-ed on why Donald Trump is the best candidate for North Korea. 

DPRK Today is a North Korean website that focuses primarily on tourism and culture. Compared to other state media, DPRK Today is pretty light on politics. For a North Korean website it is also one of the most connected to American social media with its own Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Google+ and Pinterest pages among others.

​It carries far less editorial weight than publications like Rodong Sinmun or The Pyongyang Times, and the fact that this editorial was published in DPRK Today suggests that someone is trying to test the waters of Western public opinion rather than make an explicit endorsement of Donald Trump by the Kim regime. That's not to say the editorial didn't require approval from upstairs, but there is some distance for deniability in it. 

That is, of course, not how the Western media is reporting it. What you will see on CNN and Fox is that North Korea Has Endorsed Donald Trump, when in reality a scholar has been given some leeway in a not very influential publication to float an idea. 

NK News has translated the good parts, with Mr. Han saying “In my personal opinion, there are many positive aspects to the Trump’s ‘inflammatory policies...Trump said ‘he will not get involved in the war between the South and the North,’ isn’t this fortunate from North Koreans’ perspective?”

Trump recently said in a New York Times interview that US allies Japan and South Korea should start paying more for the American defense commitment to those countries, or risk a US withdrawal. 

“Yes do it, now..." Mr. Han said in his editorial. “Who knew that the slogan ‘Yankee Go Home’ would come true like this? The day when the ‘Yankee Go Home’ slogan becomes real would be the day of Korean Unification.”

The most important part of the editorial, however, was this: “The president that U.S. citizens must vote for is not that dull Hillary — who claimed to adapt the Iranian model to resolve nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula — but Trump, who spoke of holding direct conversation with North Korea.”

Not that dull Hillary.

This guy gets it. Good job Mr. Han. I know Crooked Hillary has already stuck, but hopefully Mr. Trump takes this suggestion as from a man of his own heart. #NotDullHillary.