As discussions between the United States and North Korea continue, American elites are working hard to move the Land of the Free away from peace talks, author and professor Tim Beal told Sputnik.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo left for North Korea Thursday in an attempt to produce results on the matter of North Korean denuclearization. The trip, announced Monday by the White House, will mark the official's third trip to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Aside from holding talks on denuclearization, the 54-year-old California native is also tasked with trying to collect the remains of US soldiers killed during the Korean War — two items the states agreed upon at the summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore.

Pompeo will also meet with Japanese and South Korean officials in Tokyo before continuing on to Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates and Belgium, where he will meet up with Trump for the NATO Summit on July 11.

​Beal told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on Thursday that underneath the US-North Korea talks, the American elite, or the so-called "deep state," really doesn't want anything to do with peace because it would trigger the United States' inevitable decline.

"The American elite doesn't want peace," Beal told show hosts Brian Becker and John Kiriakou. "It doesn't necessarily want war, but it doesn't want peace."

"The military-industrial complex is predicated on war, the threat of war and the possibility of war, so, any break out of peace is a problem," he added.

And that's not all.

"The further problem is that if they have peace, it gives an example to other small countries that they can stand up to the United States and force the United States into a peaceful coexistence," Beal stressed.

Despite the end of a shooting war in 1953, no lasting peace treaty exists between North Korea and the US, with the parties only having agreed to a ceasefire. As a consequence, the US maintains a sizeable force of tens of thousands of soldiers in South Korea, while North Korea has become a garrison state that prizes its military and independence to the point of global isolation. North and South Korea are separated by the world's largest minefield and extensive fortifications along a Demilitarized Zone.

At the end of the day, the notion of peace, from the viewpoint of the American elite, "is dreadful because it could spell the end of American hegemony."

When asked about Trump's looming tariffs on China and his request for Beijing to cooperate with the US on North Korean talks, Beal dismissed the idea, claiming that 45 was "incoherent."

"Trump, of course, is famous for strategic incoherence," the author of "Crisis in Korea" said. "His left hand doesn't know what his right hand is doing. There's no coherent strategy."

Tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports are set to go in effect at 12:01 a.m. on Friday. The tariffs will hit some 818 tech products from China, including auto parts and medical instruments, the Hill reported.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.