Schumer: Trump should take Kim Jong Un off ‘trip coin’

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) demanded on Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s image be taken off a commemorative “trip coin” memorializing the upcoming summit between President Trump and Kim.

“I urge the White House to take Kim off the coin,” Schumer tweeted. “Challenge coins are a time honored tradition and certainly appropriate in this situation, but Kim Jong Un’s face has no place on this coin. He is a brutal dictator and something like the Peace House would be much more appropriate.”

I urge the White House to take Kim off the coin. Challenge coins are a time honored tradition and certainly appropriate in this situation, but Kim Jong Un’s face has no place on this coin. He is a brutal dictator and something like the Peace House would be much more appropriate. https://t.co/ZHUKVqW7yN

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) May 22, 2018

The White House Communications Agency released the commemorative coin on Monday, showing Air Force One flying over the White House on one side, and Trump and Kim face to face on the other.{mosads}

The two leaders are expected to meet in Singapore on June 12. The summit will be the first such meeting between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean leader in history.

North Korea has made a series of overtures to the U.S. in recent weeks, including releasing three American prisoners. But the outlook for the talks moved onto shakier ground last week, after Pyongyang threatened to back out of the summit if the U.S. insisted on “unilateral nuclear abandonment.”

At the same time, the North canceled planned talks with South Korea, citing Seoul’s joint military exercises with the U.S. 

The sudden shift from North Korea followed comments by national security adviser John Bolton, who said that the U.S. was hoping for Pyongyang to disarm in a similar fashion to Libya in 2003. Less than a decade after he gave up his nuclear weapons, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and executed in a NATO campaign led by the United States.

Trump has since distanced himself from Bolton’s remarks, saying he is “willing to do a lot” for Kim if he agrees to give up his nuclear program.

“He will get protections that are very strong,” Trump said. “The best thing he could do is make a deal.”