President Donald Trump stands less than one month away from making history as the first sitting US president to meet a sitting North Korean leader…
President Donald Trump stands less than one month away from making history as the first sitting US president to meet a sitting North Korean leader — but it’s increasingly looking like he’s ill-prepared and sailing towards embarrassment.
Trump has of late talked up his work on North Korea, crediting himself with creating the conditions for talks through a hardline policy. But that self-congratulation could come back to haunt him.
Throughout 2018, North Korea has pursued diplomacy with its neighbors on the back of a vague promise to denuclearize. Pyongyang’s apparent wish to make peace with South Korea after Trump’s nuclear brinkmanship throughout 2017 shocked much of the world and has generated Nobel Peace Prize buzz for the president.
But now Trump worries his meeting with Kim Jong Un “could turn into a political embarrassment,” The New York Times’ David Sanger reports, citing administration officials.
In mid-May, with only weeks until the historic summit, North Korea flipped on the US and South Korea, blasting them both with a series of complaints that seemed like a tantrum .
Sanger reported that Trump questioned whether or not he should even go through with the summit and hastily spoke by phone to South Korean President Moon Jae-in for reassurance.
Trump has so far stayed the course with the summit, which represents a a major part of his foreign policy accomplishments as president. For Kim, meeting a US president is a legitimizing win, lending his country previously unattainable international credibility.
But instead of Kim hoping the US grants him the legitimacy of a meeting, it now appears Trump is the one trying to hold on to a meeting North Korea appears willing to ditch .
