Trump calls off N. Korea summit plan
President cites recent ‘open hostility’ but leaves door open.
President Donald Trump on Thursday canceled a planned summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” from the rogue nation in a letter explaining his abrupt decision.
“I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump said to Kim in a letter released by the White House on Thursday morning.
The summit — which had the potential to be a major diplomatic victory for Trump — had been planned for June 12 in Singapore.
Speaking later at the White House, Trump sounded a bellicose note, relaying that the U.S. military is “ready if necessary” to take action against North Korea if it engages in a “foolish or reckless act” and that South Korea and Japan are willing to shoulder the costs.
At the same, Trump made clear that he is keeping open the possibility of a summit at a future date.
“While many things can happen and a great opportunity lies ahead potentially, I believe this is a tremendous setback for North Korea and indeed a setback for the world,” Trump said, adding that the United States would continue to impose tough economic
sanctions.
South Korea’s government seemed blindsided by Trump’s announcement.
“We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means,” said government spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.
Shortly before midnight in Seoul, South Korea’s president called an emergency meeting to discuss Trump’s decision, summoning his chief of staff, national security adviser, foreign minister, unification minister and intelligence chief to the presidential Blue House.
In his letter, Trump held open the possibility he and Kim could meet at a later date to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which Trump has been pushing.
The decision came amid hostile warnings from North Korea in recent days that it was reconsidering participation, including a statement that the U.S. must decide whether to “meet us in a meeting room or encounter us at [a] nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.”
A close aide to Kim unleashed a torrent of invective against the Trump administration Thursday morning, calling Vice President Mike Pence a “political dummy” for remarks he made Monday in a television interview that referred to the downfall of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
North Korea has bristled at Trump administration suggestions that it follow the “Libyan model” to abandon its nuclear efforts. Gadhafi was killed in 2011 in a Western-backed intervention after giving up his nuclear materials in 2003 and 2004 in what amounted to a relatively quick process.
“I was very much looking forward to being there with you,” Trump said in his letter to Kim. “The world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth.”
White House aides had grown concerned because North Korea had not responded to planning requests on the summit and had canceled a logistics meeting, said a senior White House official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the sensitive issue.
Many details needed to be settled within days for the summit to happen, this official said, adding that the White House did not want an embarrassing situation of “losing the upper hand.”
U.S. officials had begun signaling to other countries late last week that the summit could be postponed, and they appeared concerned that the meeting would not yield a clear result, said a foreign diplomat familiar with preparations.
A former senior U.S. official familiar with aspects of the planning said the two sides had not yet agreed on a draft communique, the usually bland statement issued at the close of diplomatic summits. The statement is typically worked out far in advance, and the absence of that draft had been a red flag to diplomats over the past week, the official said.
Trump’s decision came less than 24 hours after Moon Jae-in, the South Korean leader returned from a meeting at the White House.
Chun Yung-woo, a former South Korean nuclear negotiator with the North, said that it was better to have no summit than a disastrous summit.
“It is true that Trump overreacted to the petty game North Korea was playing to improve its hand,” Chun said. “But if North Korea is not serious about denuclearization as understood generally, it would have been dangerous to hold the summit as scheduled.”
News of Trump’s decision broke late in the evening, Asian time, and Chinese officials did not immediately respond.
But in a tweet published shortly after Trump’s announcement, Hu Xijin, the outspoken editor of the Global Times, a Communist Party-controlled paper known for its strident nationalism, criticized the move.
“The decision of US President Donald Trump was announced a few hours after North Korea dismantled its nuclear test site. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un must have felt that he was tricked by Trump,” he wrote. “Many people would think so too.”
In canceling the meeting, Trump forfeits what had been a largely popular decision to meet with Kim. An April Washington Post-ABC News poll found a 56 percent majority of Americans supported the planned meeting.