Whether this started as a cynical ploy to distract from domestic politics or not, it’s all rapidly devolving into ‘an utter disaster.’
Forget about the niceties exchanged after the much-hyped Hanoi summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un. To put it bluntly, the administration’s strategy towards Pyongyang has devolved into an utter disaster, and if things do not change soon, we could very well go back to the dark days of “fire and fury.”
So what happened? It may be that Trump walked into the summit in Hanoi with a very slick game plan. There has been ample reporting showing that the Trump administration knew that the North Koreans wanted large-scale sanctions relief in exchange for the closure of much of the Yongbyon nuclear facility. If working groups led by Special Representative Steve Biegun could not bridge the gap, why even hold the summit at all?
I have my own theory. Trump, knowing that Democrats would hold their hearing on the Michael Cohen saga during the first day of the summit in Hanoi, may have gambled that he could take advantage of his 48 hours on the world stage in a bigly way. Trump may have calculated that if he couldn’t get North Korea to bend to a grand bargain—or the total elimination of Pyongyang’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons for full sanctions relief—then he should walk. He may have assumed that he could look tough and show up the Democrats, either by making history and getting a mega-deal with Kim or walking out. Either way, he might have decided weeks ago that he needed a “win,” his domestic political fortunes trumping everything else.
There is evidence for this theory. A recent report from CNN shows that the North Koreans, after some clearly tough negotiations in which they even threatened to cancel the summit during working level meetings, did make a substantial offer in the end:
While such a deal was far from perfect, Trump could have very easily restarted negotiations right then and there.
