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June 19 was a day of remembrance for Cindy Warmbier, as it marked three years since the death of her comatose son, Otto, in an Ohio hospital following his return home from North Korea with brain injuries inflicted by the regime.

In a teleconference arranged by the NGO the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), Mrs. Warmbier called for an end to the slavery and oppression of the North Korean people.

Mrs. Warmbier also informed HRNK Executive Director Greg Scarlatoiu that Ohio Senator Rob Portman had stopped by earlier in the day to present her with a copy of a Senate resolution passed unanimously the day before.

Senator Portman and Sherrod Brown’s bipartisan resolution “condemns the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is responsible for the unjustified arrest, mistreatment, and death of Otto Warmbier,” and “calls for the United States Government to continue to use its voice and vote in the United Nations to condemn systematic human rights violations in North Korea.”

Portman and Brown also last year supported the Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions and Enforcement Act, which threatens loss of access to the U.S. financial system to foreign banks and firms that continue to do business with North Korea.

President Trump had seized on the Otto Warmbier case early on in the “fire and fury” phase of his North Korea policy, pointedly condemned his predecessor, Barack Obama, for having done very little to secure Otto’s release.

Mrs. Warmbier confirmed in her teleconference that President Obama in fact never did make any contact with the family during Otto’s almost eighteen months of captivity, nor has he reached out to the family following Otto’s death.

Trump also made use of the Warmbier case in his “Rocket Man” phase of political confrontation with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He invited Otto’s parents to his 2018 State of the Union Address and had his fathe fr, Fred Warmbier, accompany Vice President Pence to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Mrs. Warmbier was also asked if her husband had any lasting impressions of Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister and possible heir apparent who went with the North Korean Olympic delegation to Pyeongchang.

She said that she found the North Korean attendance at the Winter Games — including Kim Yo Jong — to be inappropriate, as it took away from the proper focus on the athletes and international sportsmanship.

She said that she is an apolitical person who tries to stay out of politics, although she has had to learn more about the world of the State Department and Congress in being an advocate for her son.

However, her view is that there is too much emphasis on the nuclear issue, noting that repeated efforts in this area have produced repeated failure — all while there is too little concern about North Korea’s horrendous human rights abuses and exploitation of its people.

The sanctions, she said, are not directed at hurting the North Korean people as some claim, but are a means to end the suffering of the people by stimulating regime change.

Mrs. Warmbier did say she and a group of Otto’s friends — not all of them “pro-Trump” — did have a rather awkward exchange with the President. At this gathering, Trump praised his newfound friend, Kim Jong Un, and seemed to be unaware that they hated this guy because of what he did to Otto.

In any event, the president’s North Korea initiative appears to be collapsing amid the latest revelations by former National Security Adviser John Bolton and renewed North Korean provocations, such as the demolition of the inter-Korean liaison office and the forward deployment of troops toward the DMZ.

As the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign heats up, Trump’s tendency to “coddle” dictators like Kim Jong Un, Putin, Xi Jinping, and Erdogan is becoming an issue.

Old video clips of Trump at a West Virginia campaign rally a few years ago gushing over Kim Jong Un and stating that they “fell in love” may come back to haunt him, not only in Democratic campaign ads, but also those put out by the Lincoln Project, a group of “never Trump” Republicans.

If Pyongyang continues to engage in provocative and belligerent behavior this summer and fall, it will only serve to underscore what is becoming increasingly apparent: the dismal failure of President Trump’s personal diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, one of his major foreign policy initiatives.

The human rights issue is also coming to the forefront in this political year. Beijing has taunted State Department expressions of concern over a national security crackdown in Hong Kong with the cynical tweet, “I can’t breathe” — a pointed reference to the recent killing, at the hands of the police, of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

A long-suppressed debate over police killings of black men and the public display of Confederate symbols such as flags and statues is requiring national soul searching in the United States.

The day, therefore, seems an appropriate date for Cindy Warmbier to come forward to point out to other Americans the human rights horror that is North Korea.

Pyongyang not only enslaves its own people, but has murdered her son. The case of Otto Warmbier serves to further remind Americans that Kim Jong Un is not the “lovable guy” that President Trump walked side-by-side with in Singapore two years ago.