HANOI – Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will take their relationship to a whole new level when they convene Wednesday for their second nuclear…
HANOI – Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will take their relationship to a whole new level when they convene Wednesday for their second nuclear summit in Vietnam.
The cold-and-hot dynamic between the pair is not your traditional world-leader connection – not when a U. S. president jokes about how he „fell in love“ with a North Korean dictator, a year after each threatened the other with nuclear annihilation.
Not when the stakes of Trump’s personal link with Kim are so high – the fate of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, the subject of another summit for which both leaders arrived in the Vietnamese capital Tuesday.
„I was really being tough – and so was he – and we would go back and forth,“ Trump said in a speech Sept. 29 in Wheeling, West Virginia, in the heat of the congressional elections.
„And then we fell in love, OK?“ Trump told his somewhat bemused supporters. „No, really…. He wrote me beautiful letters.“
Almost exactly a year before, on Sept. 19,2017, Trump had a much less friendly message for Kim. He told stunned delegates to the United Nations General Assembly that he would retaliate in kind to Kim’s nuclear threats and „totally destroy North Korea“ if necessary.
„Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,“ Trump said then.
The road from „fire and fury“ to love letters has been long and winding, but it fits a familiar pattern: Trump’s dealings with other leaders have a decidedly personal touch, even when it comes to the possible use of nukes.
Here are some scenes from a diplomatic version of a shotgun marriage.
Like many modern relationships, this one started on social media.
On Jan. 2,2017, just 18 days before taking the oath of office, Trump used Twitter to fire off a warning shot to Kim: „North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U. S. It won’t happen!“
So began a tense year in which Trump and Kim basically took turns taunting each other – the North Koreans by testing nuclear weapons and missiles, Trump and supporters by mocking Kim and making not-so-veiled threats.
„North Korea has just launched another missile,“ Trump tweeted in July 2017. „Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?“
Things were about to get a lot harsher.
Aug. 8,2017, brought reports that the U. S. intelligence community had determined that North Korea had developed a small nuclear warhead that could be mounted on a missile.
Asked about that finding, Trump responded with a phrase some have used to define his entire presidency – „fire and fury.
