Trump confident about Kim, suspicious of China

WASHINGTON:In his first comments after the return to pre-summit rhetoric by North Korea, US President Donald Trump on Monday tweeted that he was confident Kim Jong Un will deliver on agreements reached in Singapore and the “handshake”, but did not have the same faith in China.

“I have confidence that Kim Jong Un will honor the contract we signed &, even more importantly, our handshake,” Trump said in a tweet. “We agreed to the denuclearization of North Korea.”

“China, on the other hand,” he added, “may be exerting negative pressure on a deal because of our posture on Chinese Trade-Hope Not!”

North Korea appeared to have gone back to the days of exchange of insults of some months ago — “Rocket Man ” and “Dotard” — when its foreign ministry described American pressure on the issue of denuclearisation during secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s recent visit as “regrettable” and “gangster-like”.

The remarks came just hours after Pompeo told reporters that his meetings with North Koran officials during his two-day visit to Pyongyang had been “productive”.

Critics of Trump had promptly claimed that Pyongyang’s outburst validated their scepticism about trusting Kim, especially on denuclearisation, and exposed the fault lines in Trump’s approach to the talks. Expectations were high from Pompeo’s third visit to Pyongyang, for which he had cancelled the inaugural 2+2 meeting with India. And then came the “gangster” remarks. Pompeo played down the remarks, saying, “If those requests were gangster-like, the world is a gangster.” He had stuck to his earlier characterisation of the meetings as productive.