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| U.S. State Department Pompeo tweeted after the dinner with North Korea's envoy Kim Yong-chol ahead of the June 12 summit between President Trump and the North' Kim Jong-un: "Good working dinner with Kim Yong Chol in New York tonight. Steak, corn, and cheese on the menu." |
By Oh Young-jin
Is U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a steak man or a pork man?
It is unclear whether he is for either, but there is no doubt he is a "meat man."
Also unclear is the effectiveness of his meaty metaphor regarding North Korea.
In a way, it is an open question how Kim Jong-un, the North's leader, has been able not to feel insulted by Pompeo's references.
On Wednesday, Pompeo told CBS This Morning, "We are not going to buy a pig in a poke."
His "pig" reference comes in the context: "We're working our way toward making sure this verification that we have talked about since the beginning."
Pompeo most likely meant to use the pig idiom to ensure the North denuclearizes and it is verified, but left just enough of hint that it could refer to the North itself.
There have been no suggestions that the North took it as an insult, because it did not cancel its invitation for Pompeo to visit Pyongyang.
His Pyongyang visit was finalized after a flurry of positive developments that started at the third summit between President Moon Jae-in and the North Korean leader. This led Trump to heap praise on Kim and raised the possibility of a second Trump-Kim meeting.
Pompeo's remark becomes a little clearer when a previous remark is taken into account.
In a May 13 Fox News interview ahead of the June 12 Kim-Trump summit, Pompeo said, "All things the North Korean people need _ including the capacity for American agriculture to support North Korea so they can eat meat and have healthy lives."
This meat remark carried the greater risk of misunderstanding by the North because it signified the North's inability to feed its people and at the same time showed the disdain with which the U.S. saw the North. The North did not officially react to this remark.
Kim is not as sensitive about face as his compatriots thanks to his western education, but it is Asian etiquette not to talk about others' diet. Offering to improve it, whether by adding beef or pork, can be taken as presumptuous and insulting.
Besides, Koreans do not rely on meat as much as westerners. Perhaps staying away from their dietary customs will help Pompeo make greater progress during his Pyongyang trip in October.
