An inside source said that ‘it doesn’t look like [North Korea] wants to denuclearise at all’ as US officials worry about the planned talks on June 12
The White House has been rattled by North Korea’s recent about-face in negotiations over its nuclear weapons programme, with US President Donald Trump calling South Korean President Moon Jae-in for his thoughts on the matter, an insider has revealed.
Fearing that China has poisoned North Korean leader Kim Jong-un against him, Trump also attempted to extend an olive branch to President Xi Jinping by offering to ease sanctions on Chinese telecoms company ZTE, a second source said.
The moves come with just over three weeks to go before Trump is to meet Kim in Singapore on June 12 in a summit that Pyongyang has threatened to pull out of.
That came in sharp contrast to the more positive and constructive tone it held after Moon met Kim last month.
The call lasted less than 30 minutes, the official said, and is indicative of concerns in the White House, which has already sent an advance team to Singapore to work out logistics for the planned meeting.
Trump announced publicly last week that he believes North Korea’s tone changed after Kim’s second visit to Beijing to meet with Xi.
China has accounted for 90 per cent of trade with North Korea, and Beijing’s cooperation in enacting UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea has been a crucial part of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy.
“Since the China visit, they’ve moved pretty dramatically, shifted in the last several weeks to North Korea’s old position,” the US official said.
Inside the West Wing, aides said Trump was upset by Kim’s first visit to China in March, ahead of which Beijing did not notify the White House.
The president reacted angrily in a national security meeting, according to an administration official, and Xi later wrote a letter assuaging Trump.
Trump’s concerns over China’s influence in the summit with Kim were reflected in the president’s tweet last week in which he declared that his administration was looking at ways of potentially assisting ZTE.
The company is a Chinese phone maker that has been struggling in the wake of US economic sanctions for dealing with Iran.
Trump’s public pronouncement was aimed, in part, at trying to keep the Chinese pressure on North Korea, said the administration official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
