Singapore or Bust Trump gets the summit he wants with Kim Jong Un.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/singapore-or-bust-1527894119
The Trump Presidency is often harrowing but never dull, so perhaps it was inevitable that a summit between Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un would be back on again. The two adversaries who were publicly trading schoolyard taunts a few months ago will now meet on June 12 in Singapore after all, and the only thing we can say with any confidence is that no one has a clue what will happen.
Mr. Trump announced that the summit is back on a week after he cancelled it amid North Korean insults and unanswered phone calls. But in a sign of the surreal nature of this diplomacy, Kim then sent a top emissary who is on the U.S. sanctions list, Kim Yong Chol, to meet in New York with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. On Friday Kim Yong Chol met with Mr. Trump for more than an hour in the Oval Office, and the summit was full speed ahead.
“I think we’re over that, totally over that, and now we’re going to deal and we’re going to really start a process,” Mr. Trump said at the White House. “The relationships are building and that’s a very positive thing.” Asked if the North had committed to giving up its nuclear weapons, Mr. Trump said, “I think they want to do that. I know they want to do that.”
But there is the rub. If the North is committed to giving up its weapons, it hasn’t said so publicly. It has merely committed to a diplomatic process and a “phased” denuclearization in return for certain unspecified concessions from the U.S. But that is also what the North committed to do in the 1990s and again in the 2000s only to continue its nuclear work in secret and eventually toss out United Nations inspectors.
The summit will be an immediate propaganda coup for Kim, a sanctioned rogue who will appear on the world stage with a U.S. President for the first time. The question is what Mr. Trump will be able to take away beyond the photos of a presidential meet and greet. Mr. Trump is nothing if not confident in his negotiating abilities, and he clearly savors dominating world attention with this kind of made-for-global-TV drama.
But he also isn’t known for mastering policy details, and it was only days ago that the North released three American hostages after months of captivity, and only months ago that it essentially murdered American tourist Otto Warmbier after arresting him for trying to take home a wall poster.
On Friday Mr. Trump ignored all that and said “I don’t want to use the term maximum pressure anymore. I don’t want to use that term.” He added that “we’re getting along. You see the relationship. It’s not a question of maximum pressure.” Mr. Trump always overdoes the diplomatic flattery, but no one should forget that Kim and his family run a country that is essentially a prison for millions—and a literal prison for tens of thousands.
Perhaps a summit like this is worth trying since nothing else across four American Presidencies has worked to stop the North’s drive to become a nuclear power that can strike the U.S. We certainly hope for success, but Mr. Trump will have to be prepared for the consequences if Kim is merely there for the show.
Comments are closed.
