America hasn’t heard a lot from North Korea over the course of the last two years and that’s mostly because the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a much higher priority in the headlines in recent months.
Few are likely to remember when North Korea refused to respond to calls from America when Biden first took office early in 2021. Now they are threatening to fire ballistic missiles once again and it appears that they have done exactly that to try and gain some attention. According to intelligence from South Korea and Japan, a ballistic projectile was fired from the Eastern Coast of North Korea.
North Korea has quietly gone about their own business and will likely return to their old ways if Biden isn’t willing to reduce sanctions on North Korea. It’s possible that they are continuing to develop their nuclear technology as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the world differently. It’s also unclear how exactly the pandemic has affected North Korea over the last year and a half.
It seems like decades ago, back when President Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un met to discuss the political issue of denuclearization. That came at a point in time where the former President and the North Korean leader were exchanging political letters and notes and it seemed as if relations between America and North Korea were much better at that point in time.
Biden’s administration has struggled with foreign and domestic policy in recent weeks and that’s one reason that Joe Biden’s approval ratings and favorability ratings have plunged. The last thing that he needs right now is another foreign political crisis that could harm his approval ratings even more.
We’ll see what happens in the coming weeks but North Korea has a long history of taking provocative actions to get attention from the United States. Biden should be prepared to try and use diplomacy to his advantage just like Trump’s administration did over the last four years.