Posturing before talks in Vietnam
HANOI: United States President Donald Trump is paying a courtesy call on his Vietnamese hosts while North Korea’s Kim Jongun was expected to take in some sights yesterday before the leaders opened their second nuclear summit with a oneonone meeting and private social dinner about midnight (New Zealand time).
The carnivallike atmosphere in the Vietnamese capital, with vendors hawking Tshirts emblazoned with the leaders’ faces, stood in contrast to the serious items on their agendas: North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Trump and Kim first met last June in Singapore, a summit that was long on historic pageantry but short on any enforceable agreements for North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal.
North Korea has spent decades, at great economic sacrifice, building its nuclear programme, and there is widespread skepticism that it will give away that programme cheaply.
Trump has praised Pyongyang for ceasing missile tests and has appeared to ease up on demanding a timeline for disarmament. Trump hopes that Kim, who is seeking relief from crushing US sanctions, will opt to give up his nuclear weapons programme in exchange for help revitalising his country’s economy.
‘‘Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearise,’’ Trump tweeted yesterday, hours before he and Kim were due to meet again. ‘‘The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un. We will know fairly soon — Very Interesting!
Trump had a full day of meet ings with Vietnamese officials yesterday before the oneonone sitdown and dinner with Kim. Kim was expected to leave his lockeddown hotel to visit various sites in Hanoi.
Trump remains eager to claim an attentiongrabbing victory to offset the political turmoil he faces at home.
With the president outside the US, his nowdisbarred former personal lawyer was testifying publicly on Capitol Hill yesterday about alleged misconduct by Trump. The Democraticled House, with backing from several Republicans, approved legislation aimed at blocking the Republican president from steering billions of dollars to build barriers along the USMexico border. A House committee also voted to subpoena administration officials over family separations at the border.
Michael Cohen, once Trump’s loyal attorney and fixer, has turned on his former boss and cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is looking into whether the Trump’s presidential campaign coordinated with Russia.
The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump jun, accused Democrats in Congress of scheduling Cohen’s testimony to overshadow the summit.
‘‘After 60 years of failed attempts trying to end the war, trying to end nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula, you have finally a president who’s willing to do it,’’ he told Fox News Channel. ‘‘For the Democrats to try to counter programme that kind of progress to try to perhaps somehow distract him with this nonsense . . .’’
The president tweeted Democrats ‘‘should stop talking about what I should do with North Korea and ask themselves instead why they didn’t do ‘it’ during eight years of the Obama Administration?’’ — AP