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A tale of two leaders-Kim and Trump

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In many ways the two leaders on either side of North Korea-United States missile stand-off could not be more different. In others they are startlingly similar.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un has just overseen his second test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, bringing much of the US mainland within reach and presenting US President Donald Trump with a crisis.

But while Pyongyang has long issued bellicose threats of nuclear war, this time it is the leader of the United States of America who is declaring that his weapons are “locked and loaded” and promising “fire and fury like the world has never seen”.

“Donald Trump is probably the unlikeliest president of the United States you could possibly imagine, whereas Kim Jong-Un was the chosen heir,” says John Delury, an associate professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.

Kim’s father and predecessor Kim Jong-Il had groomed his son to take his place at the top of Pyongyang’s political pyramid for years before his death in 2011.



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– Family values –

Both men “prize loyalty”, says Delury, and are willing to employ “a high level of flux in personnel to ensure that it’s their people who are running the system. That’s a commonality between Kim and Trump.”

They also both deploy relatives in government. Dynastic descent from the North’s founder Kim Il-Sung is the basis of Kim’s personal legitimacy -– Pyongyang’s propaganda promotes the similarities between them in looks, mannerisms and even handwriting -– and several members of the Kim family hold influential positions.

In Washington, Trump’s daughter Ivanka is an assistant to the president, her husband Jared Kushner is a close advisor, and Trump’s son Donald Jr has been embroiled in the investigation into alleged Russian influence in last year’s election.

Family politics are “formalised in the North Korean system but it’s been introduced through the Trump family in a way that’s unnerving to some Americans”, says Delury. “There’s another analogy there.”

Now the two sides are locked in a cycle of threat and counter-threat, with Pyongyang revealing a plan to send a salvo of missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam.