Why is Kim Jong-un suddenly backtracking?
Trump may be the cable-news president, but perhaps it is his foil in Pyongyang who’s holding the remote
United States President Donald Trump, known for his aversion to detailed briefings, often sets much of his agenda during his morning “executive time” sessions. However, he isn’t the only world leader with a cable-TV package: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is apparently another consumer of American news coverage. And, as became clear last week, that should cause the Trump administration to think hard about how it publicly portrays the president’s upcoming summit with Kim.
The much-anticipated meeting, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore, will likely be the most important diplomatic event of the year. But last Wednesday, North Korea suddenly undercut the hype, announcing that it would postpone talks with South Korea because of Seoul’s joint military exercises with the US. Then it suggested it could pull out of the summit with Trump, too. The threats weren’t entirely unexpected. As many analysts noted, North Korea often backtracks on promises as a negotiating tactic.
Noted writer and editor Alison Evans tweeted “One reason #NorthKoreathreatened to cancel the 12 June summit? It’s leadership likely recognises how important optics are to Donald Trump ... North Korea just won lots of photos and an hour of footage from the Kim-Moon summit — Kim Jong-un doesn’t need another photo-op just yet.” But later, North
Korea released another statement that presented more significant objections to the Trump administration’s view of the Singapore summit. The complaints seemed to come in response to cable-news appearances by US officials.
This past week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton appeared on TV talk shows and discussed Trump’s plans for his meeting with Kim. Pompeo reiterated to Fox News that the US would demand
“the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearisation of North Korea”, while Bolton told CNN that North Korea is in a weak position due to Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy of economic and diplomatic isolation. And while he didn’t mention it in recent days, Bolton has previously touted the example of Libya’s denuclearisation as potential precedent. In 2003, the then-dictatorship in Libya agreed to give up its nuclear efforts in order to get relief from US sanctions and repair its moribund economy. “I think we’re looking at the Libya model of 2003, 2004,” he said to CBS News last month.
That’s a controversial assertion in Pyongyang, considering former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi died in 2011 and his country has been ravaged by conflict since. And North Korea has apparently been paying attention. In Pyongyang’s latest statement, nuclear negotiator and current Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan took aim at “high-ranking officials of the White House and the Department of State including Bolton” for their comments.
More broadly, North Korea is letting the world know that it doesn’t view the aim of the Singapore summit as Washington does. Trump has defined the aim of the talks simply: “It means they get rid of their nukes,” he said at a news conference late last month. In reality, “denuclearisation” can mean several things, including North Korea’s opinion that denuclearisation means the US should give up its own nuclear weapons in the region.
Experts opine that the surest way for the summit to end in disaster is if Trump enters with the false belief that denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula means Kim unilaterally surrendering his nuclear weapons.
If nothing else, North Korea’s threat has brought the feel-good vibe to a screeching halt. The Trump administration had taken a triumphant tone over the past few months; one unnamed European official told the Guardian that Trump officials privately suggested Kim had chosen to “surrender in front of the American power”.
Trump himself has hyped the Singapore summit as if it were a pay-per-view event. Recently, however, Trump was uncharacteristically mute. “We will have to see,” he told reporters when asked whether the summit was still on.
Whether the summit goes forward, North Korea has shown how closely it is keeping tabs on America’s news cycle — and how it’s adept at influencing that news cycle as well. Kim will surely know how badly Trump, facing bleak midterm election prospects and largely devoid of foreign-policy wins, wants to make a deal. In the end, Trump may be the cable-news president, but perhaps it is his foil in Pyongyang who’s holding the remote.