U.S. officials
As aides scramble, North Korea appears set to discuss nukes
are scrambling to prepare a potentially historic summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — while working to lower expectations that the two will achieve a nuclear breakthrough.
WASHINGTON — There’s still no confirmed date, meeting site or even a U.S. ambassador in South Korea to run interference.
But officials at the CIA, Pentagon, State Department and elsewhere are scrambling to prepare a potentially historic summit next month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — while working to lower expectations that the two will achieve a nuclear breakthrough.
But Sunday, Trump administration officials said North Korea’s government has communicated with the United States to say that Kim is ready to discuss his nuclear weapons program with Trump.
The confirmation from Pyongyang directly, rather than from third countries such as South Korea, has created more confidence within Trump’s administration about the wisdom of holding such a meeting, as U.S. officials make secretive preparations.
Trump stunned allies and apparently North Korea when he accepted a surprise invitation, passed by visiting South Korean authorities last month, to meet with Kim after their own sit-down with the enigmatic leader in Pyongyang.
The White House says the proposed summit is on track for sometime in May, although Kim has yet to comment publicly.
From logistics to content to the details of nuclear weapons, interagency teams across Washington are racing to prepare briefing materials and negotiating plans intended to bolster Trump’s ultimate goal of persuading Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal, estimated to be more than a dozen weapons.
Kim, in turn, made his first known trip out of North Korea since he took office in 2011, visiting Beijing last month to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, sending a clear message that his ties with neighboring China run deep, and he won’t be pushed around.
To hear some U.S. officials tell it, one possible outcome is a high-profile, much-photographed gettogether of two headstrong leaders who only recently were still hurling insults at each other, producing little substantive agreement but with both claiming some sort of victory.
Trump will trumpet becoming the first U.S. president to sit down with a North Korean leader.
Kim will claim the global stature that sitting down with a U.S. president awards him, finally achieving the elusive goal that his father and grandfather — his predecessors in office — both had sought.
Beyond that, U.S. officials say, success may well be declared if the two leaders do not storm angrily from the room and renew threats of nuclear Armageddon. Some experts say a besthope scenario may be for Trump and Kim to show a willingness to engage — and then step back to let veteran diplomats and subject experts carry out negotiations.
Some of Trump’s advisers think he and Kim can untangle the impasse on the Korean Peninsula, and open the way for more talks. Others say such a high-level engagement doubles the risk for failure and even military conflict if the summit goes south.
People familiar with Trump’s thinking insist he is approaching the summit with realistic expectations.
“Anybody who thinks Kim Jong Un is going to play ‘Lucy pulling the football’ isn’t paying attention,” said Jim Hanson, president of Securities Studies Group, a conservative think tank, who’s in contact with administration officials on national security issues.
“I don’t think Trump is naive about this, just that he has a very positive view of his dealmaking ability, even if it takes a few rounds,” Hanson said.
Planning for a major summit, no less the first one ever with the untested leader of a nuclear-armed adversary, would challenge any administration’s diplomatic skills. In this case, the White House has no top diplomat in place: Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last month, and the Senate has yet to confirm Mike Pompeo to replace him.
There is only an acting assistant secretary of State for East Asia, and Trump has yet to nominate a U.S. ambassador to South Korea. More importantly, perhaps, the special envoy for North Korea abruptly retired in February, reportedly over policy differences with the White House, and has not been replaced.
The Trump administration thus has no clear point person to coordinate policy toward North Korea.
As president, Trump has shown little interest in policy details, preferring to rely more on his gut. That worries diplomats and others.
“I can’t see a president who believes preparation is terribly overrated, (and) expertise is not necessary, dealing with these very complicated issues,” said Robert Gallucci, who served as chief U.S. negotiator in talks to end a nuclear crisis with North Korea in 1994.