Recently Senator Lindsey Graham has posted a tweet stating that by allowing North Korea to participate in the Winter Olympics this is giving legitimacy to the country and shouldn’t be done. Then, He proceeded to say that if participation of North Korea occurs then US would boycott.

However, according to the New York Times the South and North are planning to march under one flag. This implies that South Korea is planning to put aside the bomb threats and the strained relations between the 2 countries and allow entry of the contestants of North Korea.

Since its seems that the South has allowed participation of the North the question still stands is will Us boycott the Olympics?

The last time the Us has boycotted an Olympic is the 1940 Olympic held in Moscow. President Jimmy Carter decided to withdraw from the international sporting event due to political conflicts of interest between the US and Russia. Another important thing to note is that North Korea has participated in the 2016 Rio De Janeiro Olympics.

Therefore, is Senator Graham claims valid, as it seems that in the past few year North Korea has attended every Olympics starting from 2004 with the exception of 2014 winter olympics. If it is true that we are legitimizing “ the most illegitimate regime on the planet” then we have consistently done so it all of North Korea’s past participations. By boycotting the event nothing will be changed.

On the other hand, the NHL has declared that they are boycotting the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics as they cannot accommodate it to fit the season. This comes as a surprise as the NHL has attended the past 5 Olympics. Also according to Daniel Etchell of Inside the Games the Japanese president Shinzo Abe, is planning to boycott the Olympics due to differences in beliefs of comfort women. As Japan is one of America’s greatest allies it is possible the US may follow suit in the boycott.

Overall its seems to be unlikely that the Us will boycott the Olympics as it seems that Trump is willing to start negotiations with the North. Trump also openly shows his support for the reconciliation of the 2 countries and seems to not have a problem with North Korea attending.

<Angela Pang Arcadia High 10th Grade>