Overnight Defense: Dems detail North Korea priorities ahead of Trump summit | White House doctor under investigation | Defense industry braces for tariffs

Happy Monday and welcome to Overnight Defense. I’m Rebecca Kheel, and here’s your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond.

 

THE TOPLINE: With President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s summit back on, Senate Democrats are staking out their ground on any deal that may come out of the meeting.

In a letter to Trump and a conference call with reporters Monday, top Democrats laid out the five principles they want a deal to meet and vowed to prevent Trump from lifting sanctions should the agreement not be up to snuff.

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“We’re all hoping the president will succeed and rooting for peace,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the call. “If he tries to reach a deal with Kim Jong Un just for the sake of reaching a deal, and the agreement fails to live up the principles we’ve laid out, then he’ll have been bested at the negotiating table yet again.”

 

Democrats defined a good deal as meeting five pillars:

(1) the dismantlement or relinquishing of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons;

(2) the end to uranium and plutonium enrichment and the dismantlement of nuclear infrastructure;

(3) the continued suspension of ballistic missile tests;

(4) the ability to conduct inspections for nuclear and missile activity anytime anywhere in North Korea, as well as the ability to snap back sanctions if illicit activity is found; and

(5) the assurance that the deal would be permanent.

 

Expert take: In a briefing to reporters later Monday, a panel of experts cautioned that including areas such as chemical and biological weapons with the nuclear issue could make it impossible to reach any deal.

• “Democrats are sort of staking out the Republican view of the past,” said Joel Wit, founder of 38 North. “What I would say is, quite frankly, is that this is a historic opportunity… and in trying to pull it off, we need to be measured and careful about what our standards are for success. If you’re going to set a standard for success in terms of an agreement that somehow deals with chemical and biological weapons, you’re not going to have a success because they’re not going to be dealt with right away.”
• Added Suzanne DiMaggio, director and senior fellow at New America: “The Democrats’ message must be careful because if they put in place a situation where the demands for a deal are outside the realm of possibility then that would undermine their own position. On the issue of chemical and biological weapons, in my discussions with North Korean officials over the past two years, they have been very consistent on the idea of tackling these issues fairly early if negotiations were to come up quickly. Not solving the issue, but trying to find ways at least of not– providing assurances that they will not transfer chemical and biological weapons, which I think is a great worry for some people. So I think that would be a logical start.”

 

What about U.S. troops?: Defense Secretary James Mattis sought to make clear over the weekend that U.S. troops stationed on the Korean peninsula are not on the table for the negotiations with the North.

Mattis on Sunday said the roughly 28,000 U.S. troops based in South Korea are “not going anywhere.”

“It’s not even a subject of the discussions,” Mattis told reporters aboard his plane while returning to Washington from the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore.

 

Pencil it in: White House press secretary Huckabee Sanders said Monday that the first meeting of the summit would start at 9 a.m. June 12 Singapore time. That’s 9 p.m. on June 11 Washington time.

 

FORMER VA NOMINEE OFFICIALLY UNDER INVESTIGATION: The Pentagon’s inspector general has officially launched an investigation into allegations of misconduct by former physician to the president Ronny Jackson, a spokeswoman confirmed Monday.

“What I can tell you is that the [Department of Defense] Office of Inspector General has initiated an investigation into allegations related to Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Ronny L. Jackson,” inspector general spokeswoman Dwrena Allen said in a one-sentence email.

Jackson faces a slew of allegations that he drank on the job, overprescribed medications and created a hostile work environment.

The unconfirmed accusations came to light after President Trump nominated Jackson to become secretary of Veterans Affairs. Jackson withdrew amid the allegations.

 

Reminder: Jackson and the White House have denied the accusations, with Trump saying Democrats smeared a “great man.”

Trump’s ire has fallen particularly hard on Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who released a memo detailing many of the allegations. Tester is now facing re-election in a state Trump won. Trump called on Tester to resign over the episode, saying, “I know things about Tester that I can say, too. And if I said them, he’d never be elected again.”

Since Jackson’s withdrawal, the White House has confirmed he is no longer serving as Trump’s personal physician, but that he remains a Navy physician assigned to the White House.

 

DEFENSE BILL MOVEMENT: The full Senate will begin to take up the National Defense Authorization (NDAA) later this week, with Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) saying Monday a final vote could take place as soon as next week.

The bill, passed last month by the Senate Armed Services Committee, would authorize about $617.6 billion for the Pentagon’s base budget and for $21.6 billion defense-related programs of the Energy Department.

It would also authorize about $68.5 billion for a war fund known as the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account.

 

Appropriations: Meanwhile, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee will move on its defense spending bill Thursday, the committee announced Monday.

As it has in past years, the subcommittee will mark up the bill behind closed doors.

 

DEFENSE FIRMS BRACE FOR TARIFFS: Over the weekend, The Hill’s Ellen Mitchell took a look at how Trump’s tariffs could affect the defense industry. If you missed it:

The defense industry is bracing for the fallout from the Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Europe, Mexico and Canada.

The 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum, which went into effect Friday, are expected to raise costs for the U.S. defense industry, biting into its bottom line.

Though U.S. defense firms primarily buy steel and aluminum domestically, the tariffs are likely to lead to increased prices in the U.S., said former Pentagon official Andrew Hunter, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.

The tariffs are also likely to make allied countries less inclined to buy U.S.-made defense systems, should they have to absorb added costs associated with the trade rules, Hunter added.

 

Pushing the White House, Congress: Eric Fanning, CEO of the defense industry lobbying giant Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), said his group has communicated its concerns to the White House, while one defense industry consultant told The Hill that other defense contractor giants, including General Electric (GE), have begun to reach out to Congress in hopes of swaying the administration.

GOP lawmakers have been among those criticizing Trump’s trade policies, though the consultant said there is support for what Trump is doing in some parts of the country.

“GE is asking for pushback, and I think a lot of offices are going to be receptive to that, but some offices are very reluctant to oppose Trump because anti-free trade polls very high in areas where Trump is popular: Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, etc.,” the source said.

 

Where the Pentagon stands: The Pentagon has stayed silent on the tariffs.

Defense Secretary James Mattis in February agreed with the administration that the imported metals are a national security issue, but wrote in a memo that he favored targeted tariffs, and worried that a sweeping policy would have a “negative impact on our key allies,” and “impair” national security.

Defense Department chief spokeswoman Dana White on Thursday said the Pentagon needs time to understand the tariffs’ impact on the defense industry.

 

ON TAP FOR TOMORROW

A Senate Foreign Relations Committee subpanel will hold a hearing on U.S. policy toward North Korea with outside experts testifying at 10 a.m. at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 419. https://bit.ly/2JjnXO7

Army Secretary Mark Esper will speak at 1:15 p.m. at the Brookings Institution. https://brook.gs/2Jg9jao

The Senate Appropriations military construction, veterans affairs and related agencies subcommittee will mark up its fiscal 2019 appropriations bill at 2:30 p.m. at Dirksen 124. https://bit.ly/2LYUQSg

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for the nominees to be ambassador to Poland, director of the Office of Foreign Missions and U.S. executive director of the International Monetary Fund at 2:30 p.m. at Dirksen 419. https://bit.ly/2xGT4SF

 

ICYMI

— The Hill: Former Navy sailor pardoned by Trump plans to sue Obama

— The Hill: Opinion: What comes next in Afghanistan?

— Stars and Stripes: Foreign-born recruit faces deportation despite assurances by Mattis

— The Washington Post: Suicide bomber hits meeting of Afghan religious figures condemning terrorism, killing 14

— Yonhap: Ministry says it will exert ‘restraint’ in promoting S. Korea-U.S. drills amid peace efforts