Rep. Norcross (D-NJ): I'm Optimistic But Cautious About North Korea
*By Alisha Haridasani*
Maintaining diplomatic momentum after the historic meeting Friday between the North Korean leader Kim Jung-un and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea will likely fall on the shoulders of President Trump, who will have his own summit with Kim next month.
“I’m sure Seoul is reaching out to their Washington counterparts and coaching them in how to deal with the North Koreans and how to achieve an outcome where all three parties, to some degree, are at least satisfied with the outcome,” said Andrew Jeong, reporter at the Wall Street Journal in Seoul.
Kim and Moon agreed Friday to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons, a pledge they have made before, and to negotiate a formal end to the Korean War, which was paused in 1953 without a peace treaty. The bold, if not entirely new, statements did not include any details about how the leaders would achieve their goals.
Success, analysts said, would depend on how Trump’s meeting with Kim goes. Announced earlier this month, and scheduled for May, it would be the first meeting between a sitting American president and a North Korean leader. Former President Jimmy Carter met with Kim’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on a visit to North Korea in 1994.
According to Rep. Don Norcross (D-NJ), the president will have to convince North Korea to agree to verification that it is living up to its promises. "North Korea has a history of saying one thing and doing something very different," he said.
North Korea has pledged to abandon its nuclear program several times since 1985, when it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, only to withdraw and backtrack from earlier agreements.
"As President Reagan used to say, trust but we need to verify," said Norcross.
Though much remains to be negotiated, and success is a long way off, Trump said on Twitter that the United States “should be very proud of what is taking place in Korea.” In an [official statement](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-inter-korean-summit/), the White House press secretary said the administration was “hopeful that talks will achieve progress toward a future of peace and prosperity for the entire Korean Peninsula,” and said the U.S. “appreciates the close coordination with our ally,” South Korea.
North Korea has pledged to abandon its nuclear program several times since 1985, when it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, only to withdraw and backtrack from earlier agreements.
The dramatic meeting Friday between Kim and Moon took place in the demilitarized zone that divides their two countries as it has since the end of the war. Kim reached across the border, shook Moon’s hand, and then became the first North Korean leader to step foot in South Korea. That symbolic step set the tone for the rest of their seemingly friendly meeting.
If future talks are successful at ending the more than half century of enmity, the people of North Korea stand to benefit most, said Jeong of the Wall Street Journal.
Economic sanctions have crippled the country, and the government’s authoritarian rule under the Kim family has left its citizens on the brink of starvation for years.
“If this peace comes, this could mean that the North has more cash and more capital to spend on its economy,” Jeong said.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/congressman-norcross-d-nj-says-the-opioid-crisis-has-killed-too-many-of-his-constituents).
Peter Zalzal, associate vice president for clean air strategies at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, joined Cheddar to discuss the Biden Administration's unveiling of stricter fuel-efficiency standards for new automobiles. "The administration estimated that these rules will reduce about 2.5 billion tons of climate pollution by 2050, and using less fuel also means that we have to go to the gas pump less often. And so it means we save money, thousands of dollars in avoided fuel costs each year for consumers," he noted.
The relatively robust March jobs report showed that despite the low unemployment rate, Black, Hispanic, and women job seekers are still having difficulty finding work. William M. Rodgers III, the vice president and director of the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis noted that participation rates in the labor force ticked up for minorities, adding to other positive signs of growth. He also spoke to Cheddar News to discuss further the jobs figures, the state of the labor market, and rising inflation.
U.S. markets opened higher to kick off the second quarter, despite a miss on the March Jobs Report. The economy added $431,000 in the month, slightly lower than the $490,000 analysts had expected. The unemployment rate also ticked down to 3.6% from 3.8%. Kevin Simpson, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Capital Wealth Planning joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss.
President Biden is going after billionaires in his 2023 budget request to congress. The proposal would establish a 20% minimum tax rate on all households worth more than $100 million, as well as raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%. Rhett Buttle, Small Business for America's Future Senior Advisor, Business Policy Expert & Biden Campaign Business Advisor, breaks down the proposal, what it aims to accomplish, and how small businesses might feel about it.
The Biden administration has announced the U.S. will accept up to 100,000 refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine and provide more than 1 billion dollars in new funding for the growing humanitarian crisis. The move comes as President Biden meets with his western counterparts in Europe to demonstrate a united front against Russia and show support for Ukraine. Altagracia Pierre-Outerbridge, Immigration Attorney for Outerbridge Law, explains how this is going to work.
The DOJ has endorsed an antitrust bill targeting tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Google. The legislation would ban the companies from favoring their own products and services over their competitor's, making it more difficult them to dominate the marketplace. Greg Day, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Georgia, breaks down the bill and its potential impact on anti-competition in the tech sector.
Catching you up with what you need to know on Apr 1, 2022, with Ukrainians hoping to flee the besieged city of Mariupol with a ceasefire is in place, President Biden orders the release of oil from U.S.reserves, LGBT activists suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the "Don't Say Gay" Law, U.S. passports offering an "x" option for gender, and more.
America’s employers extended a streak of robust hiring in March, adding 431,000 jobs in a sign of the economy’s resilience in the face of a still-destructive pandemic and the highest inflation in 40 years.
