O peso da bomba na balança para a paz: o papel do governo Trump e da política Byungjin da aproximação entre EUA e RPDC

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the convergence of relations between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States of America (US) during Donald J. Trump's government. The understanding of this convergence will take place through the diplomatic turn that occurred along the Trump management. Thus, we seek to understand the reasons which led the US to this posture change, its reception by the DPRK, and this policy’s consequences towards the distention of the peninsula and the approach between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the DPRK. The persistence of the Korean War, which started in 1950 and stagnated in an armistice in 1953, still shows itself as a fragile point in the international policies towards the peninsula distention, a historical development stemming from the results of the Second World War. Thus, the political impasses in the second half of the 20th century and their influence on relations between the Korean Peninsula and the US, as well as the DPRK’s contingent nuclearization, will be observed in order to better understand the terms on which the US lead the debates on resumption of relations and lifting of sanctions, and on the basis on which the DPRK builds its Byungjin policy. Therefore, this work presents the turning point in US's policy towards the DPRK during Trump management in relation to its predecessors, this new policy’s influence on the relationship with the DPRK, and the influence of the Byungjin policy of economic and nuclear “parallel development” in this change of policy by the US. For this analysis, the critical-dialectical method will be followed, through qualitative-based research, with bibliographic and documentary sources which approach DPRK-US relations during Trump management. This work seeks to understand the reasoning behind nuclear potential and nuclear development being highly relevant to the DPRK, as well as the US’s historical and contemporary perspectives on North Korean nuclear policy.