It has only been twelve short days since the Singapore Summit but with our attention quickly diverted to the “border crisis”, it seems much longer. With the “New York Post” reporting some amazing changes in North Korea, could Kim Jung Un be signaling that he is really ready to denuclearize?

From the “New York Post”:

The North Korean government is erasing much of its anti-U.S. propaganda following dictator Kim Jong-un’s forays onto the world stage.

Gone are the posters depicting the U.S. as a “rotten, diseased, pirate nation” and promising “merciless revenge” on American forces for an imagined attack on the totalitarian country.

In their place are cheery messages touting praising the prospects for Korean reunification and the declaration Kim signed in April with South Korean President Moon Jae-in promising “lasting peace,” according to reports.

What? Why? Remember the video that President Donald Trump showed to Dear Leader Kim at the Singapore Summit?

Bloody freaking genius, right? Destiny. Shared culture. Basketball. Kim Jung Un could be a hero or a zero. This was the carrot that Trump offered Kim. There is the stick too. As reported by the “Wall Street Journal”, international sanctions are starting to work. From the article: “At a border crossing, garments and seafood aren’t coming out, and fewer Chinese goods are going in. Will it stop Kim Jong Un?” Additionally, although his record is quite spotty, Donald Trump has stopped China from laundering some money for the North Koreans. The “South China Morning Post” reported November 2017:

The United States excluded China’s Bank of Dandong from its financial system on Thursday, alleging that it has helped North Korea evade financial sanctions to launder funds.
Washington had alerted other businesses in June that it planned to take the action, but it finally went into effect just as US President Donald Trump was to set off on an Asian tour.

The US leader has demanded that Beijing do more to push its neighbour North Korea to stop efforts to build a nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching American cities.

The “Maximum Pressure” campaign that resulted in the June 12 Singapore Summit may now be forcing Leader Kim to soften his approach to the United States as well as his neighbor to the south, South Korea.

More from the “New York Post” article:

“All the anti-American posters I usually see around Kim Il-sung Square and at shops, they’ve all just gone,” Rowan Beard, a tour manager at Young Pioneer Tours, told Reuters. “In five years working in North Korea, I’ve never seen them completely disappear before.”

Infamous posters and postcards showing North Korean missiles on their way to Washington are a thing of the past. Also removed are the anti-American trinkets that used to be sold to tourists as souvenirs. In their place are items showing themes of Korean reunification.

Also importantly, although the elites have laughed at Donald Trump for claiming that families want the remains of U.S. Military personnel still unaccounted for from the Korean Conflict, not knowing is a “wound that never heals”. The Department of Defense has positioned about 100 wooden coffins at the DMZ for repatriation of the missing.

All of this cannot ever let us forget the brutality of Otto Warmbier’s death or the trauma inflicted on his parents. This does not release the approximately 120,000 North Korean men, women and children held in Kim’s prison camps. None of this destroys one nuclear weapon.

As long as the sticks of “Maximum Pressure” remain in place, the carrots of condos on the beach, tourism and Burger King franchises might hold more allure for Kim Jung Un. He might be ready to denuclearize.