Trump, Kim meet in Singapore
President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un came together for a momentous summit Tuesday that could chart a course for historic peace or raise the spectre of a growing nuclear threat. Kim called the sit-down a “good prelude for peace” as Trump pledged that “working together we will get it taken care of.”
In a meeting that seemed unthinkable just months ago, Trump and Kim met with staged ceremony at a Singapore island resort. Before the watching world, they strode toward each other and clasped hands warmly before a row of alternating U.S. and North Korean flags. The duo then moved into a roughly 40-minute one-on-one meeting, joined only by their interpreters, before including their advisers for additional talks.
For all the upbeat talk, it was an open question what, if any, concrete results the sitdown would produce. Emerging from a working luncheon with Kim, Trump said the two leaders planned to hold a signing ceremony shortly. He did not specify what they planned to sign.
“We’re going to be announcing that in a couple of minutes,” Trump said.
In advance of their private session, Trump predicted “tremendous success” while Kim said through an interpreter that “we have come here after overcoming” obstacles.
Aware that the eyes of the world were on a moment many people never expected to see, Kim said many of those watching would think it was a scene from a “science fiction movie.”
In the run-up to the meeting, Trump had predicted the two men might strike a nuclear deal or forge a formal end to the Korean War in the course of a single meeting or over several days. But in the hours before the summit, the White House unexpectedly announced Trump would depart Singapore earlier than expected — Tuesday evening — raising questions about whether his aspirations for an ambitious outcome had been scaled back.
Giving voice to the anticipation felt around the world, South Korean President Moon Jaein said Tuesday he “hardly slept” before the summit. Moon and other officials watched the live broadcast of the summit before a South Korean Cabinet meeting in his presidential office
The meeting was the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.
After meeting privately and with aides, Trump and Kim moved into the luncheon at a long flower-bedecked table. As they entered, Trump injected some levity to the day’s extraordinary events, saying: “Getting a good picture everybody? So we look nice and handsome and thin? Perfect.”
Then they dined on beef short rib confit along with sweet and sour crispy pork.
And as they emerged from the meal for a brief stroll together, Trump appeared to delight in showing his North Korean counterpart the interior of “The Beast,” the famed U.S. presidential limousine known for its high-tech fortifications.
Critics of the summit leapt at the leaders’ handshake and the moonlight stroll Kim took Monday night along the glittering Singapore waterfront, saying it was further evidence that Trump was helping legitimize Kim on the world stage as an equal of the U.S. president. Kim has been accused of horrific rights abuses against his people. During his stroll, crowds yelled out Kim’s name and jostled to take pictures, and the North Korean leader posed for a selfie with Singapore officials.