Trump talks with N. Korea a predictable mess: experts

WASHINGTON— Donald Trump lapped up his supporters’ prediction of a Nobel Peace Prize. His critics said his North Korea overture would fall to pieces.

Well, it crumbled.

The U.S. president’s cancellation of his planned Kim Jong Un summit, delivered in the form of a public Thursday letter that read at times like the handiwork of a jilted teen suitor, was much like his decision to accept the summit in the first place: impulsive, self-centred, surprising to key allies — unadulterated Trump, for better or worse.

For worse, foreign policy experts say.

Trump’s letter blamed the cancellation on Kim Jong Un’s return to “open hostility.”

Republican members of Congress said Trump deserves credit for walking away, instead of trying to play a bad hand.

Seasoned analysts tended to agree that he made the right final move. The summit, they said, was doomed to disaster.

But they said that was partly because Trump had mishandled the file from the start.

“Goat rodeo,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on Asian non-proliferation is- sues, using a phrase that roughly translates to unholy mess.

“Amateur hour,” said Aaron David Miller, who advised six secretaries of state on the Middle East.

Trump, who fashions himself a master dealmaker, has so far struggled to make deals on the world stage. Across many issues, from North Korea to NAFTA to trade with China, he has been plagued, experts say, by a similar set of selfinflicted problems.

One is his obvious disregard for policy specifics. Because he does not settle debates for his staff, said Ilan Goldenberg, director of the Middle East security program at the Center for a New American Security, they end up promoting their own distinct agendas.

National security adviser John Bolton spoke of using a “Libya model” for North Korean denuclearization. Given that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed after he gave up his weapons, the phrase was so certain to alarm Kim that some analysts thought Bolton was deliberately trying to sabotage the summit.

When Trump tried to offer reassurance by rejecting a Libya model, it was clear that he did not know what the phrase meant.

“Preparations for this summit were insufficient,” Miller said. “The message discipline was horrible.”

Experts also say Trump has been plagued by a fact-gathering and decision-making process that frequently involves few voices outside his own head. On North Korea, the president, who famously said “nobody knew that health care could be so complicated,” sounded again as if he was operating without the basic political history that could have been given to him by dozens of aides.

When he accepted Kim’s meeting offer within an hour of hearing it, he appeared to believe he had earned a rare opportunity rather than gifted the regime the prize of a legitimacy it had long sought. When he boasted that Kim had agreed to denuclearization, he seemed unaware that North Korea had broken identical promises in the past.

Trump has also shown little interest in telling allies what he does know. He declined to give South Korea advance warning that he was calling the meeting off — forcing a “very perplexed” President Moon Jae-in, who had visited Trump just two days prior, to hold an emergency midnight meeting.

(As for the North, The Associated Press reported last night that the regime says it’s still willing to sit down for talks with the U.S. “at any time, at any format.” Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement that North Korea is “willing to give the U.S. time and opportunities” to reconsider talks.)

“The president doesn’t listen. He just goes off and does his own thing,” said Goldenberg, who served in the Obama administration.

“Rogue operating … doesn’t work in foreign policy.”

Consultative and policy-minded presidents such as Obama also made serious policy blunders. Miller credits Trump for his handling of Iraq; a NAFTA deal remains very possible; Trump did secure the return of Americans taken prisoner by the regime. Trump and his team expressed hope that a Kim summit could be held eventually.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said at the White House. As usual, it did not seem as though he had a plan in mind.