Administration aides have grown increasingly skeptical the summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will come to fruition amid harsh rhetoric from Pyongyang and concerns over the meeting’s agenda, officials and other people familiar with the matter said.
Trump administration officials have also grown concerned that the President is overly eager for the summit to take place, increasing Kim’s leverage should the talks take place, US officials and a source close to the administration said.
“I don’t think the President gets cold feet about anything,” said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin when asked Monday by reporters at the White House whether Trump was reconsidering his participation in the summit. “The President is set. Right now it’s still on. If that changes, you’ll find out about it.”
But Vice President Mike Pence made clear Trump might change his mind. “It would be a great mistake for Kim Jong Un to think he could play Donald Trump,” Pence told Fox News on Monday. Asked whether Trump was willing to abandon the summit if his terms aren’t met, Pence said “there’s no question.”
Moon meeting key
The recent pangs of anxiety will come to a head on Tuesday when Trump meets in the Oval Office with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who some US officials believe oversold North Korea’s willingness to negotiate away its nuclear program. In March, Moon’s envoy told reporters in the White House driveway that Kim is “committed to denuclearization” and understood that joint US-South Korea military exercises “must continue.”
But statements last week from North Korea indicated otherwise. The North threatened to withdraw from the Trump talks if the joint exercises proceeded or if the US continued to insist Pyongyang abandon its nuclear program.
Moon, who also spoke to the President by phone on Saturday, hopes to keep the summit on track, believing the recent diplomatic warming has forestalled the possibility of US strikes on North Korea.
“Probably more than anyone else — more than Trump, more than Kim Jong Un — there is more at stake for Moon Jae-in than either of them,” said Joseph Yun,the former US special representative for North Korea policy. “And so he will be desperate to make sure that there is a meeting. And I would expect he will make his best pitch.”
Now, Moon will need to convince Trump to stay the course, reassuring him the direct talks with North Korea can still be the success he once promised Trump they would be.
“President Moon has to really deliver in terms of making President Trump feel like this summit isn’t going to go bust,” said Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst and Korea expert.
