Trump faces tall order at summit

WASHINGTON – Now that President Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un is back on the schedule, aides are scrambling to fill in details with a challenging agenda focused on North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

While Trump hailed the June 12 summit in Singapore as a big step forward, little more than a week after he canceled it over a public tiff with Kim, the president also played down expectations. The U.S. faces a tall order to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapon programs. “It’s really a get-to-knowyou kind of a situation,” Trump said.

Trump told reporters the meeting is the start of a “process” toward a deal on complete denuclearization of North Korea. No easy task, analysts said.

In giving a summit to Kim, Trump has conferred immense prestige on a leader he denounced as “Little Rocket Man.” That means Trump needs to get something tangible out of a summit that will draw intense scrutiny, analysts said.

“There’s got to be a balance here between ‘get-to-know’ and a detailed blueprint” for moving forward, said Aaron David Miller, a former negotiator for secretaries of state from both parties.

Miller said the summit needs at least good visuals, meaningful words in a communique and “some structured process of a follow-up.”

The North Koreans are also going to want things, likely including a reduction in economic sanctions.

Many analysts are skeptical North Korea will ever agree to give up its nuclear weapons, which Kim sees as a guarantee of security for his country.

Sung-Yoon Lee, professor of Korean studies at Tufts University, said Kim may already have won by agreeing to talk about nuclear weapons. That prospect could undercut U.S. efforts to pressure China and other countries into withholding economic aid unless North Korea gives up nuclear weapons.

Lee said a long, open-ended negotiation process “will enable Kim to buy time and money with which to perfect his own nuclear posture review.”