Even if you know nothing about the Tiananmen Square massacre, you’ve almost surely seen the famous photo of a man facing down a line of tanks, defiantly blocking their path. Doing so took even more courage than you may imagine. When that brave man, who has never been identified, made his stand 30 years ago this month, the Communist government in Beijing had already slaughtered hundreds of his countrymen. It began almost two months earlier when former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang died of a heart attack. He had supported reforms that helped bring economic opportunity and some political reforms to China, but hardline party members forced him out. Tens of thousands of students, workers and civilians filled the streets of Beijing in the wake of Yaobang’s death. On May 13, they began a hunger strike. “After the hunger strike, the student movement transformed into a country of political protest with a lot of other groups like workers and especially intellectuals,” student leader Wang Dan said 20 years later. “That made our government very scared.” It all came to a head in those early June days, when soldiers and tanks put down the rebellion. Did the Chinese government learn its lesson? Yes. Too bad it was the wrong lesson. What they learned is that dissent must be snuffed out long before it flowers into a protest movement. Two things enable them to do that. One is a technique as old as communism itself: Erase the past. How successful have they been? Consider the fact that, all these years later, a Chinese newspaper accidentally ran a photo from the massacre, not realizing what it was. Nobody recognized what this was. So they didn’t realize they should censor it.

In the short-term, we are concerned with having the north comply with nuclear inspections; in the long term, we must get them to open up because this will cut short the life-span of totalitarianism.” Nixon continued, “The north is an outlaw nation. It is unacceptable for it to have nuclear weapons. This is an issue of the highest priority for the United States, and it should be for China because China is also a nuclear power and should not welcome any other regional power getting the weapons. We all have differences as tough economic competitors. Each country, however, must be concerned with proliferation, especially in North Korea.” In Beijing, Nixon reiterated the point to Premier Li Peng and pressed him to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. He was met with stony denial from Mr. Li. The more things change, the more they stay the same. In his final book, published in 1994, Nixon wrote, “Of the three remaining communist states (apart from China), North Korea remains a serious, active threat, not only to South Korea but to the peace and security of the entire Pacific Rim. Until it ceases to be a threat, we should continue to treat it as the pariah nation that its leaders still persist in making it.” Given the very different strategic and economic landscape of today, Mr. Trump is gambling on a different approach. If his policy of cautious engagement succeeds in ultimately delivering a denuclearizing North Korea, an official end to the Korean War and a budding free market North Korean economy, he will have pulled off the near-impossible. It’s a tall order. But recall that the opening to China was a tall order, too, and yet the president who ended the war in the nation that hosted Mr. Trump pulled that off.

Denuclearization is the ultimate goal, although the sides cannot even agree to its definition, and giving up the only thing that gets it worldwide credibility is not in Pyongyang’s interest. For the time being, Mr. Trump and his team are focused on confidence-building measures, the possibilities of which include a non-binding Korean peace declaration, opening a diplomatic liaison office in Pyongyang, human rights assurances and further repatriation of American soldiers’ remains. And Trump and his team remain hopeful that Mr. Kim will agree to additional steps toward denuclearization, including disclosing previously undeclared facilities and allowing inspections and the monitoring of nuclear materials. Mr. Trump comes bearing sticks in the form of sanctions and pressure on Pyongyang’s patron, China, and carrots in the form of sanctions relief, potential economic reform and the growth that would come with it. Not an easy road, as Nixon detailed during his 1993 visit to Asia, which I reported in my book, “Nixon in Winter.” “Because the peninsula is split and the border is so militarized, the leaders in the south have to be good,” he said to me in Seoul. “Korea is one of those places where the United States has a vital interest in seeing peace and stability. The North Koreans are isolated now that the Soviet Union doesn’t exist; they’re desperate and, frankly, nuts.” Nixon told South Korean president, Kim Young Sam, “The North Koreans have such unpredictable political leadership. Many thought the Soviets were evil, but none thought they were crazy. We cannot say that about the North Koreans. It is the most closed, secretive society in the world.”

Fifty years ago, an American president prosecuted a war against North Vietnamese communist forces aided and abetted by its powerhouse ideological bedfellows, the Soviet Union and China. Today, another American president visited a reunified Vietnam where full-throated capitalism is delivering an economic miracle to a once poverty-torn communist hellscape. President Richard Nixon ended the war in Vietnam, and in his final years advocated for normalization with Hanoi and economic liberalization now in place. The current president, Donald Trump, is reported to be impressed by the economic progress he’s witnessed and is pitching North Korean leader Kim Jong-un similar results for his nation if he abandons his nuclear weapons program. Much has changed since Mr. Nixon addressed the challenges of the Pacific Rim. But as Mr. Trump now tries to initiate a new relationship with North Korea while managing global expectations and security concerns of allies like Japan and South Korea, he may find Nixon’s words on the matter instructive. As Nixon’s foreign policy assistant during his last years, I accompanied him on his final trip to Asia in April 1993. His primary regional concern at the time was, of course, China, around which everything else then, as now, revolved. But he was intensely worried about North Korea and its nascent hunt for nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles with which to deliver them. Today, thanks to a devastatingly naive deal struck by President Bill Clinton, Pyongyang has both, destabilizing the region and the world. Mr. Trump has achieved a halt to nuclear testing, although intelligence suggests that Mr. Kim has continuing producing warheads and missiles.

The slow-motion catastrophe that is the Venezuelan revolution shows no signs of abating. It keeps going, going and going, and in ever steeper descent. Not very long ago Venezuelans lived in the richest country in South America, awash in oil, with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, all set upon abundant fertile land. The ruinous policies of the late Hugo Chavez and his chosen heir put an end to all that, and set Venezuela’s economy in ruins. Mr. Chavez, who took power in 1999, nationalized and plundered national industries, bankrupted his country’s financial reserves with lavish social spending and raised interest rates to the point that business simply cannot function. His successor has accomplished what was thought impossible. He has made things worse. Facing crippling deficits as oil prices collapsed, Mr. Maduro printed money. Hyperinflation followed, of course, and as the government ran out of foreign currency it could no longer import basic goods. Toilet paper became a prized and rare item in Venezuela. Every Venezuelan with the means fled the country, creating a refugee crisis in neighboring countries. Independent economists in Venezuela expect by the end of this year that the nation’s economy will have shrunk an astonishing 35 percent over the past five years, and the poverty rate has risen to 87 percent. Paying for a cup of coffee, a visitor observes, can take an hour. Streets are empty after dark. Streetlights no longer work, and the only people out after dark are kids rummaging through garbage cans looking for something to eat. The rape of Venezuela demonstrates once more that the place where Marxist economics works is in a textbook. Nothing revolutionary about that.

To hear many in the media tell it, President Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal was the worst thing to happen since he was elected. “Trump withdraws from Iran nuclear deal, isolating him further from world,” a CNN headline read. A New York Times reporter said the president is “isolating the United States from its Western allies.” Notice a pattern? Almost all of the criticism I’ve cited here (and I could cite many more examples) focused on how Mr. Trump is breaking with the rest of the world ? as if that, in and of itself, is irrefutable evidence of error. There is no inherent value to swimming with the tide. Yes, we should pay attention to what our allies are doing, but to suggest that following a different course of action is proof that we’re doing something wrong is ridiculous. Real leadership is standing up for what’s right, regardless of what others are doing. Indeed, it takes genuine strength to buck the trend. And the trend on the Iran deal is something that definitely called for some serious recalibrating ? something that our big-thinking president excels at. Mr. Trump knew that the Iran deal, far from ensuring peace, has been posing a threat to it. So it followed that having a huge player such as the U.S. pull out of it wasn’t dangerous. On the contrary, getting rid of a bad agreement is a key first step to avoiding the real danger: a nuclear-armed Iran. “This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” the president said. Our allies know this. For political reasons, though, they can’t say so publicly, so they have to leave the U.S. to take the flak.

The GDP of North Korea is less than half that of Fairfax County, Virginia, and only a little more than half of Vermont’s, which has less than 3 percent of the population of North Korea. Iran has a GDP smaller than Belgium’ (and seven times the population). Russia has a GDP which is smaller than that of Italy, Texas or South Korea. The GDP of California is more than twice that of Russia, even though the Russian population is three-and-a-half times that of California. The Trump administration has made a bet that it can reach agreements with each of these three countries (North Korea, Iran and Russia) to reduce military tensions because it understands that it is dealing with economic pygmies, whose economies are going nowhere. North Korea, Iran and Russia have much to gain by reducing the confrontation with the U.S. ? and to do otherwise means eventual economic and/or military suicide. North Korea has the most centralized and least open economy in the world. As a result, it is also one of the poorest of the poor. Six decades ago, North Korea was richer on a per capita basis than South Korea, but now capitalist South Korea has more than 20 times the real per capita income of communist North Korea. Kim Jong-un is, of course, well aware of the relative success of the two Koreas. The enhanced sanctions have clearly put the regime against the economic wall. In sum, he has every incentive to try to reach some sort of accommodation ? because he has almost no other option if Mr. Trump remains firm. Also, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has just offered Mr. Kim a carrot in saying that we would help him reform and build his economy.

The offensive, plus Tehran’s announcement Wednesday of its intention to restore nuclear enrichment, demonstrates how American economic pressure is pinching Iran. But hell must freeze over before Iran starts the long thaw. In contrast, North Korea’s inscrutable strong man has seen the distant light of a new day. Chairman Kim Jong-un himself supervised the testing of a short-range ballistic missile and other projectiles, which splashed harmlessly into the Sea of Japan but raised the hackles of its South Korean and Japanese neighbors. Rather than an act of aggression, the test was meant to telegraph the message that talks with the United States over denuclearization have soured dramatically. President Trump, who routinely meets Iranian animosity in kind, greeted the North’s latest militaristic display with the forbearance of a doting uncle. The difference this time may be the investment he has made in winning the confidence of Chairman Kim. Walking and talking together during bilateral summits in Singapore and Hanoi, the odd couple by all accounts have forged a genuine rapport. The difference between the two rogues is that Iran’s mullahs threaten to strike out at enemies in foreign lands, and Chairman Kim seems intent on merely testing the patience of his counterpart of the same flesh and blood in the south. Korean denuclearization and reunification is not a problem that can be solved through politics alone. It’s something of a family matter. If Mr. Trump can help both North and South to keep the porch light on, his wish for a productive third summit with Mr. Kim may yet come to pass. The slow march toward peace in Asia, however, is on a path that Iran’s mullahs seem determined not to walk.

The two most obstreperous children in the “family” of nations are at it again, rattling sabers as if in unison. Iran’s furtive provocations in the Persian Gulf are roiling the Middle East and North Korea’s resumption of missile testing is once more putting Asia on edge. America’s responses are distinctly different, because the Islamic state’s hostility is uniformly implacable, and the flame of reconciliation still flickers within the Hermit Kingdom. Where there’s light, there’s hope. Citing “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,” the United States announced Sunday that it had dispatched the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, with its accompanying strike group and a bomber force, to the Middle East. This is in response to indications that Iran may be preparing to attack either U.S. military forces or oil tankers plying the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a third of the world’s oil supply transits. “The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime,” said National Security Adviser John Bolton. “But we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or by regular Iranian forces.” The bushy-browed mullahs in Iran can’t tolerate so much as a sidelong glance from the West without dissolving in outrage, and President Trump has pushed their most sensitive button. He suspended waivers for nations purchasing Iranian oil as he restored tough economic sanctions a year after withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal. Threatening the region’s oil routes could spike oil prices around the world, and the cost to Iran for the pursuit of an Islamic Bomb spiked through the roof. The deployment of U.S. military forces follows the firing of rockets at Israel from positions in Gaza, where Iran supplies money and weaponry to the ruling Hamas organization.

To win a trade war or any diplomatic skirmish - be it disarming North Korea, stifling Russian aggression or fixing unfair trade ? the president needs to know the enemy, cultivate allies and implement a strategy that imposes more costs on malefactors than on Americans. Mr. Trump’s hawks, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro, confuse trade with the world and trade with China. The World Trade Organization (WTO) isn’t busted and our allies are not trade criminals. No Western government fully adheres to the free market ideal embodied in WTO rules, including ours. Its dispute settlement mechanism is there to decide when incidental contact becomes pass interference ? WTO panelists are no more perfect than NFL referees. The Middle Kingdom got rich with mercantilist practices that exploit its developing country status in the WTO. That permits higher tariffs and weaker adherence to other rules, but China is a powerhouse and merits no such special treatment. Its notorious industrial targeting - opaque administrative barriers to imports that supplement high tariffs, extravagant production and export subsidies and criminal acquisition of Western technology through compulsory joint ventures and outright piracy - is virtually impossible to police through WTO dispute settlement. It would be like prosecuting tens of thousands of white-collar criminals on Wall Street each year. Those are terribly difficult cases for government lawyers to win, even one at a time. If Beijing wants to rig trade, then it must be balanced. Otherwise, China accumulates hundreds of billions of dollars it can use to buy influence through its Silk Road initiative and acquire Western technology companies.