Planes, trains and atomic deals
Gone is the bluster about a de-nuked North Korea. Progress now seen as step by step
Trump dialed back expectations heading into his second meeting with North Korea’s leader, but observers say modest progress is possible at Hanoi summit.
After his first summit with Kim Jong Un, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that “there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”
He enters his second summit with Kim, which begins in Vietnam on Wednesday, looking to do much less than end the nuclear threat from North Korea.
At least for now, Trump has abandoned his baseless claims about earth-shattering success on denuclearization. Instead, he is arguing that incremental and quickly reversible changes — a halt to North Korean nuclear and missile testing, a friendly relationship with the formerly bellicose Kim — count as big victories even as Kim keeps his nuclear arsenal.
To Trump’s critics, including some Republicans and some independent North Korea experts, Trump’s goalpost-shifting is a worrisome sign that he will give a rogue state the time and space to keep honing its ability to strike the United States and its Asian allies. But other experts have welcomed his decision to choose step-bystep diplomacy over the dramatic moves he once seemed to be weighing as he threatened to annihilate North Korea.
“We should want to make as much progress as possible on denuclearization — but we need to recognize that this is an incredibly difficult task and make sure we don’t throw away the chance for lesser but meaningful gains because our standard for success was so high,” Mintaro Oba, a former U.S. State Department official who worked on Korea policy, said in an email.
“Maintaining a diplomatic process will at the very least keep tensions below ‘fire and fury’ levels, and hopefully allow Washington to increase its leverage to reduce the North Korean nuclear threat over time. Right now, North Korea has little incentive to do so.”
Trump is both unversed in policy specifics and proudly unpredictable in his diplomatic dealings, and he has not hinted at what he might agree to at the two-day summit at a Hanoi hotel. He said Sunday and last week that he is in “no rush” on denuclearization, explaining, “as long as there’s no testing, we’re happy.”
The first summit, in Singapore last June, ended with a brief agreement between the two countries that included a vague and rehashed North Korean promise to “work toward” denuclearization, which was not defined. The two sides now appear interested in getting more specific, but not in getting particularly ambitious.
“There’s movement toward a phased approach, placing a U.S. priority on freezing Pyongyang's nuclear and missile capabilities, with denuclearization as an overarching, longerterm goal. This isn’t the U.S. lowering the bar. It’s bringing expectations at this stage of negotiations back down to earth,” Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fel- low at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in an email.
The U.S. news website Vox reported that Washington and Pyongyang are tentatively considering a deal including: a declaration that would symbolically but not officially end the Korean War, in which a truce was called in 1953; “liaison offices” in each country to make diplomatic relations more normal; a North Korean promise to stop producing material for nuclear bombs at its Yongbyon nuclear facility; and the lifting of a small number of sanctions on North Korea.
“That’s a meaningful deal for both sides — it’s exactly the contours of an interim deal that we should be pushing for,” Vipin Narang, a MIT political science professor and expert on nuclear strategy, said in an email.
“Depending on details and implementation/verification, of course, even dismantling the five-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon significantly constrains the future North Korean nuclear force, even if you think it’s nearing end of life anyway — it shunts its only source of plutonium, and potentially constrains its tritium supply for Hbombs as well.” The New York Times, Washington Post and others have reported that even members of Trump’s administration are worried he will make unwise concessions in pursuit of something he can sell as a “win” to Americans — or, perhaps, to the people who decide on the Nobel Peace Prize, which he has repeatedly suggested he wants.
Of particular concern is the presence of more than 25,000 U.S. troops in South Korea. Kim wants them gone and Trump has complained about the cost of keeping them there.
“Given his mounting domestic and legal problems, Trump is coming to the table in Hanoi is a weaker position,” said DiMaggio. “He needs a win, and there’s concern that he’ll give away too much in order to get it. For example, will he prematurely move ahead with a U.S. troop reduction on the peninsula?”
Trump might be distracted by events back home. His former lawyer turned accuser, Michael Cohen, is scheduled to publicly testify before Congress on Wednesday, and early reports suggest Cohen will accuse Trump of criminal behaviour, racism and lying.
“If you think this isn't the foremost concern on Trump's mind as he meets with Kim Jong Un, you’re smoking dope,” North Korea expert Van Jackson said on Twitter. Trump has professed his fondness for Kim since the Singapore summit, calling the dictator’s private letters “beautiful” and declaring in September that “we fell in love.” Even as he has denounced countries like Iran and Venezuela for human rights violations, he has declined for months to raise Kim’s own abuses.
The two men are scheduled to meet one-on-one for 20 minutes about 6:40 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday, according to Trump’s public schedule, then take part in a “social dinner.” They are expected to meet again on Thursday.