Barack Obama
Democratic Incumbent
President Obama in his first presidential campaign called for direct engagement with North Korea. In a September 2008 presidential debate, Obama said a lack of diplomatic engagement with North Korea led the country to significantly increase its nuclear capacity, and said the Bush administration's eventual reengagement with the regime led to "some progress." Yet in early April 2009 North Korea launched a rocket with the potential for use for in long-range missiles. Following condemnation by Obama, North Korea launched a second nuclear test on May 25, 2009, and Washington moved to adopt UN sanctions.
In his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama said his administration's efforts had led to North Korea facing "increasing isolation and stronger sanctions." In the 2011 SOTU, he vowed to stand with South Korea "and insist that North Korea keeps its commitment to abandoning nuclear weapons." His administration has "pledged to work with our partners to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea through the Six-Party process."
In February 2012, the Obama administration said it would ship new food aid after North Korea agreed to allow new UN inspections of its nuclear program and a moratorium on missile tests. However, after a failed satellite launch in April, the Obama administration suspended food aid on the grounds that had Pyongyang defied the agreement (WashPost).
Ron Paul
Republican Candidate
Rep. Paul's (R-TX) preference for a noninterventionist U.S. foreign policy shapes his views toward the Korean Peninsula. On his web site, he notes the United States should not be obligated to defend South Korea and that the United States and the West have overreacted to North Korean threats. He supports discussing trade with North Korea and argues the West has encouraged North Korean nuclearization by "rewarding people who have nuclear weapons."
According to this web site, Paul also says, "If there is indeed a military threat in that part of the world, it should be the business of South Korea. It should be the business of Japan. It should be the business of China. Not the American taxpayer."
Mitt Romney
Republican Candidate
Romney considers North Korea a "rogue nation" that along with Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, poses a threat to international peace and security. Romney says he will work with allies for tougher sanctions against Pyongyang, including cracking down on financial institutions that service North Korea and sanctioning companies that conduct international shipping in and out of the country.
In response to Kim Jong il's death in December 2011, he told Fox News: "the best thing we can do with regards to North Korea is to have tough economic sanctions on them by virtue of their policies, make sure that their technology is not exported to places around the world that can use that technology against us or against our friends in the world."
Romney said that under Kim, North Korea, "recklessly pursued nuclear weapons (CNN), sold nuclear and missile technology to other rogue regimes, and committed acts of military aggression against our ally South Korea. He will not be missed."
In a 2009 e-mail to supporters, Romney criticized the Obama administration (Politico) for weakness in its foreign policy toward Iran and North Korea. He said he would also encourage China to use its leverage with North Korea to persuade it to disarm and would "reassure China it will not be alone in dealing with humanitarian and security issues that will arise should North Korea disintegrate." (PDF)
Romney condemned the April satellite launch in a statement, holding the Obama administration partly responsible for North Korea's bad behavior against the will of the rest of the world.
"Instead of approaching Pyongyang from a position of strength, President Obama sought to appease the regime with a food-aid deal that proved to be as naïve as it was short-lived," Romney said. "At the same time, [Obama] has cut critical U.S. missile defense programs and continues to underfund them."
Newt Gingrich (*withdrew)
Editor's Note: Gingrich withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on May 2, 2012.
Gingrich said after the reported death of Kim Jong-il (CNN) in December 2011: "I take very seriously the kind of dictatorship we're seeing in North Korea. The truth is, we have no idea what the successor will be like, whether the regime will become more open or become even more dangerous. Both in Iran and North Korea we have real challenges."
He criticized the Obama administration after Pyongyang's long-range missile test in 2009 for not acting pre-emptively. He also criticizes previous administrations for failing to act decisively on North Korea. In 2006, he criticized the Bush administration for its North Korea policy, saying "We have accepted the lawyer-diplomatic fantasy (WashPost) that talking while North Korea builds bombs and missiles and talking while the Iranians build bombs and missiles is progress."
Gingrich spoke extensively on North Korea to Fox News in 2009, citing the danger it poses. "One morning, just like 9/11, there's going to be a disaster, and people are going to look around and say, 'Gosh, why didn't anyone think of that?' Well, I'm telling you the time to think about it's before the disaster, not afterward," Gingrich said. He has also criticized the United Nations for failing to do anything "effective with either Iran or North Korea."
Rick Santorum (*withdrew)
Editor's Note: Santorum withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on April 10, 2012.
Santorum sees Iran, rather than North Korea, as the leading threat to nuclear security (CNBC). He believes that the United States and its allies should be firm in their stand against the development of nuclear technology, and he supports selective assassination as a deterrent.
"I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, or from North Korea or from Iran, and you're gonna work on a nuclear program to develop a nuclear bomb for Iran, you are not safe," he said in October 2011.
Michelle Bachmann (*withdrew)
Editor's Note: Rep. Bachmann withdrew her candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on January 4, 2012.
Rep. Bachmann (R-MN) said after the reported December 2011 death of Kim Jong-il (CNN): "While we have one less dictator in the world who is oppressing his own people there is no indication that there is a hope for freedom on the horizon for the people of North Korea because his successor could quite likely be even worse than Kim Jong-il."
She sees North Korea as part of a new "axis of evil" that also includes Iran, China, and Russia. "We're seeing third-word, basket-case nations nuclearize up while the United States is denuclearizing," she said in an interview with Glenn Beck in late November 2011.
She believes that China has helped North Korea deliver missiles to Iran and Pakistan. Bachmann recently voted in favor of the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Reform and Modernization Act, which provides for new sanctions against companies that transfer certain goods, services, and technology to these countries.
Jon Huntsman (*withdrew)
Editor's Note: Huntsman withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on January 16, 2012.
Huntsman, U.S. ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011, reportedly sees China as the key to dealing with the nuclear threat (SLT) from North Korea. Huntsman views strained military ties between the United States and China (Bloomberg) as an obstacle to working on North Korea, including discussions on planning for a possible collapse of the Pyongyang regime.
On a 2006 trade mission in China, Huntsman reportedly called a Pyongyang nuclear test a "hostile act" (Deseret News) that "makes the world less safe, less stable, and not only poses a threat to this region but to all humankind." He said that a positive solution is impossible without Chinese and U.S. cooperation on the issues.
Huntsman said the death of Kim in December 2011 (CNN) offers North Koreans "the best opportunity to get on a path towards a more free and open society and political reform." He said the United States must coordinate (AFP) with South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia to "use all available pressure points to prevent rogue activities and proliferation" out of North Korea.
Rick Perry (*withdrew)
Editor's Note: Perry withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on January 19, 2012.
In his book "Fed Up: Our Fight to Save America from Washington," Perry writes that North Korea and Iran are both unpredictable countries whose nuclear ambitions constitute an "imminent threat" to the United States.
Reacting to the December 2011 death of Kim Jong-il, Perry expressed concern about the ongoing behavior of the regime Kim shaped (CNN). "Twenty-three million people still live under North Korea's isolationist, inhumane and tyrannical policies," he said. "North Korea remains a nuclear power, and there is a great threat that those weapons might fall into the wrong hands if civil war breaks out."
Campaign 2012
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