With even President Donald Trump’s harshest critics offering grudging praise on his policies toward North Korea, it is hard not to acknowledge that the president has changed the dynamic, a foreign-policy expert said Monday.

Gordon Chang, author of “Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World,” said on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that he remains “concerned about the future, but very happy about today.” And Trump’s rhetoric and polices have made the difference, he added.

“We are at a place where no one thought we would be,” he said Monday morning. “That’s not to say we [will] disarm North Korea. But what we are on is a path to disarming North Korea. And that is important, especially with the North Koreans making concessions beforehand.”

Trump on Monday tweeted that numerous countries are under consideration for a planned summit between himself and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He suggested that the border between the North Korea and South Korea might be an appropriate location.

This comes after Kim traveled to South Korea for the first time to meet with his counterpart from that country, President Moon Jae-in. The two men pledged peace.

Chang said that so many remarkable developments have occurred just in the past nine days that it is hard to keep up. He traced the dramatic change in North Korea’s posture to the fact that Kim’s bellicose rhetoric had spooked South Korea, Japan, and — crucially — China.

“But it’s also President Trump’s sanctions — unilateral ones, and going to the U.N. and getting the body there to enact these multilateral sanctions,” he said.

The fact that Kim is offering concessions is a sign that his regime is feeling the bite of those sanctions, Chang said.

“We are seeing things that are really stunning,” he said. “And one of them is that — you know, we’ve seen North Koreans make concessions in nuclear negotiations, but not before the talks begin. And Kim is making some really important ones.”

No only that, Chang said, but Kim publicly has asked for two relatively small concessions — a pledge from the United States not to attack his country and a commitment to convert the armistice ending fighting in the Korea War into a formal peace treaty.

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“Those two things are really low-cost for the United States,” he said. “Now, is Kim serious? We don’t know. But the point is, North Koreans are acting like they are at a weak position with regard to the United States and the international community.”

“That’s going to be a dynamic where President Trump is going to have to make sure that Beijing gets out of the sanctions-busting business — at the same time he goes after them on trade.”

One factor that could unravel any long-term, enforceable deal is China, Chang said. He noted that China recently has eased up on enforcing international sanctions against North Korea. China alone has the power to extend a lifeline to Kim to allow him to resist demands to give up his nuclear weapons.

“That’s going to be a dynamic where President Trump is going to have to make sure that Beijing gets out of the sanctions-busting business — at the same time he goes after them on trade,” he said. “Tall order for the president.”

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The danger, Chang said, is that Trump links America’s trade disputes with China to the nuclear threat on the Korean Peninsula.

“The China challenge is not only pervasive … it’s also existential,” he said.

Chang said that China is trying — with a large degree of success — to steal American intellectual property.

“We have an innovation economy,” he said. “And if the Chinese take out innovation, we don’t have an economy left.”

PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.