TOKYO — President Donald Trump used his biggest stage of the year last week to announce a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
TOKYO — President Donald Trump used his biggest stage of the year last week to announce a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump said in his State of the Union address that he intends to meet Kim Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam, saying that although much work remains to be done toward peace on the Korean Peninsula, his relationship with Kim is a good one.
But is Kim really ready to make a deal?
Here’s why the stakes will be higher this time around:
Lowering expectations
Trump’s announcement of the summit’s timing and location was expected. He had been teasing it for weeks. But he kept his North Korea remarks surprisingly short.
After dramatically asserting that if he hadn’t been elected president, the U. S. and North Korea would be fighting a major war now, he acknowledged that much work remains to be done. That’s quite a shift from his claim right after his June summit with Kim in Singapore that the nuclear threat from the North was over.
The president’s tune changed in other ways as well.
The word denuclearization was nowhere to be found. Neither was anything specific about what he achieved in Singapore or what specifically he intends to get out of another meeting.
Trump is smart to give himself a lot of wiggle room.
U. S. intelligence chiefs believe there is little likelihood Kim will voluntarily give up his nuclear weapons or missiles capable of carrying them.
Nevertheless, efforts to nail down the logistics and an agenda for the summit do appear to be on track. Just before Trump spoke, the U. S. special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, reportedly flew to Pyongyang to try to flesh out summit logistics and an agenda.
