The president says he’ll know right away if the North Korean leader isn’t serious about negotiations.<\/b>
\nSINGAPORE \u2014 President Trump cast his Tuesday summit with North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un as a \u201cone-time shot\u201d for the autocratic leader to ditch his nuclear weapons and enter the community of nations, saying he would know within moments if Kim is serious about the talks.
Trump said Saturday he was embarking on a \u201cmission of peace,\u201d as he departed the Group of Seven meeting in Canada to fly to the summit site in Singapore. Saying he has a \u201cclear objective in mind\u201d to convince Kim to abandon his nuclear program in exchange for unspecified \u201cprotections\u201d from the U. S., Trump acknowledged that the direction of the high-stakes meeting is unpredictable, adding it \u201cwill always be spur of the moment.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s unknown territory in the truest sense, but I really feel confident,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cI feel that Kim Jong Un wants to do something great for his people and he has that opportunity and he won\u2019t have that opportunity again.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s a one-time shot and I think it\u2019s going to work out very well,\u201d he said.
The meeting will be the first between a sitting U. S. president and a North Korean leader. Unlike traditional summits between heads of state, where most of the work is completed in advance of a photo-op, U. S. officials say the only thing certain ahead of these talks will be their unpredictability.
Raising expectations in advance of the meeting, Trump said the outcome will rely heavily on his own instincts. The U. S. president, who prides himself on his deal-making prowess, said he will know \u201cwithin the first minute\u201d of meeting Kim whether the North Korean leader is serious about the nuclear negotiations.
\u201cI think I\u2019ll know pretty quickly whether or not, in my opinion, something positive will happen. And if I think it won\u2019t happen, I\u2019m not going to waste my time. I don\u2019t want to waste his time,\u201d Trump said.
\u201cThis is a leader who really is an unknown personality,\u201d Trump added of Kim. \u201cPeople don\u2019t know much about him. I think that he\u2019s going to surprise on the upside, very much on the upside.\u201d
The Kim sit-down comes as Trump\u2019s international negotiating skills have faced their toughest tests to date with mixed results.
Tensions flared at the G-7 summit between Trump and U. S. allies over his protectionist economic policies and decisions to exit the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate accord.
Trump rated his relationships with U. S. partners as \u201ca 10,\u201d though erstwhile allies spent much of the weekend directly challenging Trump\u2019s policy positions.
As he looks to the Kim meeting, Trump is taking a high-stakes risk in hopes of containing the increasingly challenging national security threats from North Korea\u2019s advanced nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Seeing Nobel Peace Prize laurels and eyeing potential to show up his critics at home and abroad, Trump is granting Kim the international legitimacy he\u2019s long sought in hopes of securing a legacy-defining accord.
\u201cHe could take that nation with those great people and truly make it great,\u201d Trump said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I feel positive, because it makes so much sense.\u201d
Trump also praised the North Koreans, saying they have been \u201creally working very well with us\u201d during preparations for the summit, even though Trump had canceled the summit last month following a recent period of what he called \u201ctremendous anger and open hostility\u201d from the North Korean government. But then Trump did a quick pivot, signaling almost immediately after scrapping the meeting that he was open to going ahead with it after all.
Delegations from both countries then launched into a frenetic period of negotiations that are expected to culminate with Tuesday\u2019s meeting.
\u201cSo far, so good. We\u2019re going to have to see what happens. I very much look forward to it,\u201d Trump said.
Still, questions remain about what a deal on the North\u2019s nuclear weapons could look like.
Trump has said he believes Kim would agree to denuclearization \u2013 and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he had received Kim\u2019s personal assurances to that effect \u2013 but the two countries have offered differing visions of what that would entail. Despite Kim\u2019s apparent eagerness for a summit with Trump, there are doubts that he would fully relinquish his nuclear arsenal, which he may see as his guarantee of survival.
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