Jeffrey Caplan
The name calling between two world leaders who seem to be pushing toward the brink of war continued with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un describing the Trump administration as a billionaires’ club that is instituting a “policy of racism,” Newsweek reports.
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The Institute of International Studies in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea released Wednesday the “White Paper on Human Rights Violations in the U.S. in 2017.” The report claims that human rights in the U.S. have deteriorated since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017.
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The paper accuses the Trump administration of advocating a “policy of racism,” deepening social inequalities, hurting press freedoms and denying health care to American citizens.
“Racial discrimination and misanthropy are serious maladies inherent to the social system of the U.S., and they have been aggravated since Trump took office,” the paper said. “The racial violence that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12 is a typical example of the acme of the current administration’s policy of racism.”
The report had been circulated by North Korean diplomats in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) — North Korea’s state-controlled media outlet — put out a summary of the paper on Wednesday.
The summary accuses Trump of filling his Cabinet with a staff of billionaires that includes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, Secretary of the Treasury and former Goldman Sachs investor Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
“The total assets of public servants at the level of deputy secretary and above of the current administration are worth $14 billion,” the paper said.
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The report also made the ironic assertion that freedoms of the press and of expression did not exist in the U.S. and that crackdowns against the media had grown more aggressive since Trump was inaugurated. The report also claimed that the “absolute majority of the working masses [in the U.S.], deprived of elementary rights to survival, are hovering in the abyss of nightmare.”
On Tuesday, President Trump, in his State of the Union address, attacked North Korea’s human rights record. In his speech, Trump called Kim Jong-un “depraved” and told the world that North Korea’s continuing development of nuclear missiles might “soon threaten” the U.S. mainland.
The latest name-calling continues the back-and-forth between the two nations and their leaders regarding the DPRK’s nuclear and missile programs.
