Ball in Kim’s court at Hanoi meeting
Donald Trump will sit down with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi tonight with much less fanfare than heralded their first meeting held last year in Singapore. The pressure was on the United States President at that time to demonstrate his self-proclaimed art of the deal. In the event, Trump appeared to give away much more than he got in return.
He said he had agreed to halt US military exercises in South Korea and Chairman Kim committed North Korea to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”. Since then the US is said to have “scaled down” military exercises on the peninsula but not halted them. North Korea has not conducted any further tests of nuclear weapons and missiles and has destroyed one testing facility. But Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has been unable to make progress towards an all-important verification procedure at several meetings in Pyongyang.
Heading to Hanoi, Trump sounded unconcerned about the lack of progress and confident that he has some sort of rapport with the young North Korean autocrat. US diplomats and its defence establishment were surprised and dismayed at Trump’s concession on military exercises last time and they will be anxious about what he might concede this time.
At the very least he might agree to scale down economic sanctions in return for something verifiable. The two leaders might even agree on steps towards a peace agreement as a formal end to the Korean war that ended 65 years ago. And one of those steps would logically be a gradual withdrawal of US forces that have been holding the line since the ceasefire of 1953.
It has become clear when the North Koreans talk of “denuclearisation of the peninsula” they are not just referring to their own programme. They are unlikely to disarm it completely while the soldiers of a nuclear superpower remain stationed on the other side of the demilitarised zone.
A withdrawal of the garrison remains unthinkable for US diplomats, defence officials and commentators on the talks. It would cause palpitations in the governments of South Korea and Japan. But Trump has proved willing to bypass advice when he has his head set on a certain course and he has made no secret of his wish that America’s allies bear more of their defence burden.
US officials and commentators are unable to see their forces in South Korea as a threat to the North. Trump seems better able to see the stalemate from the North Korean point of view. At Singapore he described the US military exercises as “provocative” and his decision to scale them down was outside the vague terms of agreement published after the summit.
The North Koreans doubtless realise they could get much more from this President than any whose officials they have met before, or might meet again. Trump, though, may be content to maintain a relationship that replaces the threats Americans were hearing up to this time last year. It is Kim that has more to gain at Hanoi. The ball is in his court.