It’s back on. U. S. President Donald Trump reversed course Friday, announcing that his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will, indeed, be
It’s back on.
U. S. President Donald Trump reversed course Friday, announcing that his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will, indeed, be held on June 12 in Singapore, but noted pointedly that Washington’s allies and China — not the United States — would cover the cost of economic aid, saying “that’s their neighborhood; it’s not our neighborhood.”
In confirming the summit, Trump said he believed it would be a “very successful” meeting and “ultimately, a successful process.”
The announcement came as Trump met at the White House with North Korea’s Kim Yong Chol, a former spy chief and the country’s de facto No. 2 official, who is currently under punitive U. S. sanctions.
Trump had abruptly cancelled the summit last month, citing Pyongyang’s “open hostility,” but on Friday said the meeting would be “a great start.”
Still, amid all the fanfare and political drama, the U. S. president also attempted to tamp down expectations for the meeting, where the two sides are due to discuss the North’s nuclear weapons program, calling it a “beginning.”
“I think it’ll be a process,” Trump said at the White House. “I never said it goes in one meeting. I think it’s going to be a process. But the relationships are building, and that’s a very positive thing.”
Although the White House had initially said the meeting would only be held to discuss the North’s immediate denuclearization, the president on Friday signaled a recalibration that the U. S. could agree to a type of “phased” or incremental approach to that issue.
Trump said that while he believes Kim is committed to denuclearization,”we’re not going to go in and sign something on June 12th and we never were.”
“We’re going to start a process,” he said. “And I told them today, ‘Take your time. We can go fast. We can go slowly.’ But I think they’d like to see something happen. And if we can work that out, that will be good.”
Trump’s 90-minute meeting with Kim Yong Chol, who the U. S. president called “the second most powerful man in North Korea,” made Kim the highest-level official from the country to set foot in the White House in 18 years.
The former spy chief, who reportedly met with Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, also delivered what appeared to be an almost comically oversized letter to the president, photos showed. Trump initially told reporters that the letter was “very interesting” when asked about its contents, but later admitted that he not yet read it.
“I may be in for a big surprise, folks,” he joked.
And so could U. S. allies.
Asked if the U. S. planned to offer economic aid at the June 12 summit, Trump said that he doesn’t “see the United States spending a lot of money.
