Trump Credits Kim for PyeongChang Success

(ATR) U.S. President Donald Trump said following his summit with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un that the latter was responsible for the success of the 2018 Winter Olympics.

"You know, North Korea did a great thing by going to the Olympics," Trump told reporters in Singapore. "The Olympics and President Moon will tell you this, the Olympics was not exactly doing great. People didn’t feel like being bombed out of the opening ceremonies. They weren’t exactly selling tickets."

The president spoke at a briefing following the June 12 summit. Trump’s claim of Kim’s responsibility for the success of the 2018 Winter Olympics is new, and delivered to its biggest audience ever at a historic event.

Trump’s statement stands in stark contrast to his bellicose rhetoric where he took credit for the success of the PyeongChang Games in the months after the closing ceremony.

"Without us and without me in particular, I guess, you would have to say, that [the two Koreas] wouldn’t be discussing anything, including the Olympics would have been a failure," Trump said during a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. "Instead, it was a great success."

Following his summit with Kim, Trump measured his idea of success for PyeongChang by saying tickets "sold like wildfire," once North Korea announced participation in January.

"They took an Olympics that would have been a massive failure and made it a tremendous success by agreeing to participate," Trump said. "Add that to the list of things [North Korea has] done."

The United States and North Korea signed a joint statement pledging to the "establishment of new U.S.–DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula". The statement was light on details, but offered a security guarantee to the North Korean regime in exchange for promoting denuclearization.

The statement did not bring up North Korean human rights abuses, or a firm timeline for denuclearization. Dialogue between the two countries will provide a reprieve from dangerous rhetoric, but Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert and Professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, said the agreement has "zero practical value" on Twitter.

"The U.S. could have extracted serious concessions, but it was not done," Lankov wrote. "N.Korea will be emboldened and the U.S. got nothing."

What do I think about today's joint agreement? It has zero practical value. The U.S. could have extracted serious concessions, but it was not done. N.Korea will be emboldened and the U.S. got nothing: https://t.co/FXkkURMnpC

Should an agreement between the U.S. and North Korea lead to sanction relief, the outcome of the summit could result in North Korea hosting a multi-sport event as soon as 2021. At the end of the PyeongChang Games, Gangwon Province Governor Choi Moon-Soon suggested a joint Korean bid for the 2021 Asian Winter Games. Events could be held in PyeongChang and the Masikryong Ski Resort in North Korea.

Trump Writes to FIFA

Trump’s comments are not the only sports diplomacy he has engaged in, as the U.S. President reportedly penned three letters to FIFA to assuage travel concerns related to the 2026 World Cup bid.

The letters, first reported by the New York Times, are meant to clear up concerns about entry to the U.S. for players and officials.

United States Soccer Federation President Carlos Cordeiro worked with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in crafting the letters, according to the report, which have been distributed on recent trips to football federations worldwide. The joint U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid and its rival bid from Morocco are engaged in a last ditch effort to convince voters ahead of the 2018 FIFA Congress in Moscow. For the first time, all eligible football associations will have a individual vote in selecting the World Cup host.

The Morocco bid was deemed significantly weaker by a FIFA technical committee, but has been seen as a dark horse due to increased hostility towards the United States and embarrassing gaffes from President Trump.

Ahmad Ahmad the head of the Confederation of African Federations has urged his continental association, which has 54 members, to vote in a bloc for Morocco in African solidarity. Such overtures are common in a bid process where deal-making is common.

Trump is guaranteed to be out of office by the time the 2026 World Cup begins, but his presidency has loomed large over the voting process. As in the case of Los Angeles’ bid for the 2024 Olympics, Trump rarely spoke about the World Cup bid. However, when he did it caused controversy.

In one tweet about the bid Trump said "it would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid," prompting FIFA to say it was investigating if any bid rules were broken.

Contrast that with the content of the recent letters to FIFA.

"I am confident that the United States would host the 2026 FIFA World Cup in a similarly open and festive manner, and that all eligible athletes, officials and fans from all countries around the world would be able to enter the United States without discrimination," Trump wrote in one of his letters.

As United 2026 goes into the final day of voting, Cordeiro told the New York Times that he thinks the letters may ultimately shift the tide back in his bid’s favor.

"You know, in this environment, he says that, in writing — it’s pretty powerful," Cordeiro said.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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