Trump contradicts a key advisor on North Korea

WASHINGTON — President Trump disavowed a controversial remark made by his national security advisor, John Bolton, as he appeared increasingly eager Thursday to preserve a historic one-on-one meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un scheduled for next month.

Bolton had spooked North Koreans recently by suggesting Pyongyang follow the path taken by Libya more than a decade ago, when that country abandoned its effort to build nuclear weapons in exchange for economic benefits and warmer relations. Within a few years, Libya’s leader, Moammar Kadafi, lost his job and his life at the hands of Western-backed rebels.

The North Koreans threatened this week to back out of the summit, citing Bolton by name as they accused the U.S. of making unwith reasonable demands for rapid abandonment of their nuclear program.

“The Libyan model isn’t a model that we have at all,” Trump told reporters during a photo session with the visiting secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Jens Stoltenberg. “We decimated that country.”

By contrast, Trump promised that if the United States reaches a deal with North Korea, Kim would “be running his country. His country would be very rich.”

The president also vowed that Kim would “get protections that will be very strong,” a sharp departure from the fiery rhetoric Trump used just months ago and a promise that would appear to go far beyond what previous administrations have offered the communist dictatorship. Previous administrations have offered economic incentives and pledges not to take hostile action, but have not said they would affirmatively protect the North.

Trump also implied Thursday that China’s President Xi Jinping may be trying to influence the North Koreans to take a harder line, perhaps in response to U.S. pressure on trade.

Trump’s efforts to soothe Pyongyang could prevent Kim from following through on the threat to call off the summit. But his words highlighted his eagerness to get a deal — an emotion that even some aides fear could lead him to give up too much at the negotiating table.

His disavowal of Bolton’s remark could also undermine Trump’s ability to present a unified front for his administration as he prepares to face off with a country that for decades has scuttled efforts to rein in its nuclear program. Americans who have negotiated Kim and his father, Kim Jong Il, say the country has a history of dishonest dealing.

“When the president openly disagrees with his national security advisor about the objective of talks, that’s going to encourage North Korean mischief, and it’s going to discourage allies who depend on the United States to be steady,” said Michael J. Green, who served as senior Asia advisor to President George W. Bush during a prior effort to negotiate with North Korea. Those talks also included South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass., said Trump was making clear to North Korea that he is focused on the deal above all else. The North Koreans, as they threatened to withdraw, also said they felt misled about the extent of South Korean-U.S. military exercises. By laying out their concerns in public without actually withdrawing, they were intentionally leaving Trump a way to preserve the summit, Park said.

“The way that things are playing out right now, the choice for the president is Bolton or the summit,” Park said. “The early signs are that he’s prioritizing the summit.”

Park did not think Bolton would lose his job.

Trump added that U.S. and North Korean diplomats continue to meet to plan for the summit.

“Nothing has changed on North Korea that we know of,” he said. “We’ll see what happens. If the meeting happens, it happens.” If not, “we go on to the next step.”