WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump on Wednesday hailed the release of three U.S. detainees in North Korea, but in negotiating with Kim Jong Un, the Trump administration may have played into Pyongyang's history of "hostage diplomacy," harshly criticized by national security adviser John Bolton when Barack Obama was president.
Bolton has been one of the strongest critics of North Korea's long history of detaining and imprisoning foreign visitors and then using them as leverage for talks with U.S. leaders.
Bolton admonished Obama in 2009 for engaging in "political ransom" with North Korea after Obama dispatched another former president, Bill Clinton, to negotiate the release of two American journalists. Bolton argued it put humanitarian aid workers, academics and other Americans at risk. It also gave the north "political legitimacy" and emboldened Iran and other autocracies to take similar steps to gain leverage on the United States.
