Trump to meet S. Korea leader
President Donald Trump will meet with South Korean President Moon Jaein at the White House today amid signs that his close partnership with Seoul in brokering a historic nuclear deal with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is faltering.
Moon’s top aides presented Trump in March with the invitation from Kim to hold the unprecedented summit, an offer Trump accepted on the spot. But Moon’s visit to Washington coincides with renewed tensions on the Korean Peninsula that have thrust doubt on the fate of the meeting, scheduled to take place in Singapore next month.
Trump advisers have expressed alarm at Pyongyang’s hostile rhetoric and actions over the past week, questioning whether Kim is committed to pledges to seriously discuss denuclearization. The president, who spoke to Moon late Saturday, is expected to further press the South Korean leader on his views of Kim’s willingness to change course on his nuclear program, a White House official said.
“This time last week, Moon was coming here with the intention of trying to heavily script what Trump would do in his meeting with Kim,” said Victor Cha, who served as senior Asia director at the National Security Council in the George W. Bush administration. “Now, he’s coming here just to try to save the summit. The mission has really changed.”
For Moon, who has staked his presidency on the peace push, the White House visit, scheduled weeks ago, represents a crucial opportunity to soothe Trump’s concerns and, perhaps, readjust his expectations about the potential outcome.
Trump has consistently raised public expectations over the summit, suggesting he would be able to secure a historic breakthrough with Kim where previous administrations have failed over 27 years of off-and-on negotiations and several past deals that quickly collapsed.
Yet the North Koreans, after taking steps to build confidence, including Kim’s announcement that his regime would destroy a nuclear testing site, have reverted to threats to cancel the summit over objections to U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises and hard-line statements from Trump aides.
“Moon has to come in as assuager-in-chief and massage the situation between Trump and Kim,” said Jung Pak, a former CIA official who now serves as an Asia analyst at the Brookings Institution. “North Korea’s comments really have thrown some obstacles in the way of what seemed to be going pretty smoothly.”