Enemy countries’ historic meeting full of symbolism
When the SINGAPORE — president of theUnited States pulls out an iPad and shows the leader of North Korea a slick, bombastic video — essentially aHollywood-style trailerpresenting the North’s possible future, featuring fighter jets and missile launches cut together with images of dancing children, artisanal pizzaandtime-lapse sunrises over skyscrapers— you knowthis is not an ordinary summit meeting.
Then again, the historic encounter between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, was never going to be just any summit.
The video — which the White House also showed to the traveling press corps before Trump answered questions at a ramblingnews conference— showcased the president’s reality television sensibility.
Complete with an ominous voiceover and a swelling soundtrack, the film staked out a choice for Kim without specifically mentioning nuclearweapons or sanctions relief: He could “shake the hand of peace and enjoy prosperity like he has never seen,” or slide back into “more isolation.”
From the moment the on-again, off-again summit between Trump and Kim was declared back on just twoweeks ago, it was a foregoneconclusion that itwould be one of the most dramatic meetings ever between two world leaders.
Although the declaration that emerged fromthe meeting did not substantively advance efforts to denuclearize NorthKorea, the symbolismof the meeting between the leaders of two enemy countries was enormous.
For Kim, a millennial dictator who has ordered the executions of 340 people, including his ownuncle and half brother, it was North Korea’s de facto legitimization on the international stage, a masterful propaganda coup for the reclusive rogue state.
ForTrump, itwas a chance to claim his place in history, as the first sitting American president to meet a North Korean leader.
Together, they created political theater likenoother.
Despite the fact that the two countries do not have formal diplomatic relations, all of the pageantry pointed to a meeting between near equals— fromthe phalanx of American and NorthKorean flags that stood behind the leaders as they first met, to their joint entrance into the roomwhere they signed the declaration.
The optics of Trump shaking Kim’s hand, smiling and describing a “very special bond” between the two leaders, was in sharp contrast to Trump’s appearance at a bruising Group of 7 meeting in Canada just days earlier, whereTrumphad lashed out at America’s closest allies.
Kim’smeetingwithTrump, on the resort island of Sentosa off the southern tip of Singapore, also had a decidedly different flavor than Kim’s first meeting in April with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea at Panmunjom, the border between the two Koreas.
Thatcloselywatchedmeeting, which in manyways set the stage for the Singapore summit, was expertly choreographed, with numerous images ofharmony and lighthearted banter between the two leaders.
The stagecraft of Trump’s encounterwith Kim did not appear as sophisticated. But there were plenty of riveting scenes, including several clearly spontaneous moments that heightened the drama.
Just after Trump and Kim took a brief stroll after lunch, the president led Kim to take a look inside the Cadillac presidential limo known as the Beast. For a second it looked as if Kim might climb inside before his aides stopped him.
And as the pair retreated to a breezeway encircling the Capella Singapore hotel, they huddled with advisers, including John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, and Kim Yo Jong, Kim’s sister.
For several minutes the grouplookedconfusedabout where theywere supposedto go next, with Bolton appearing particularly agitated over Trump’s shoulder.