Trump going on instincts for talks
President says ‘within the first minute, I’ll know’ about Kim’s nuke intentions
SINGAPORE >> Embarking on a selfdescribed “mission of peace,” President Donald Trump puts his seat-ofthe-pants foreign policy to its toughest test yet as he attempts this week to personally broker an end to North Korea’s nuclear program in talks with Kim Jong Un.
The impulsive American president, who just this weekend sowed chaos within the Western alliance, is set to face his match on the global stage as he prepares to meet Kim in Singapore on Tuesday.
In the historic first meeting between the leaders of the technically still-warring nations, Trump is prioritizing instinct over planning. Unlike traditional summits between heads of state, where most of the work is completed in advance, U.S. officials say the only thing certain ahead of these talks will be their unpredictability.
Trump was upbeat as he departed Canada on Saturday for his daylong
journey halfway around the globe, which included a refueling stop on the Greek island of Crete. The president told reporters he would rely on his intuition to size up Kim’s intentions regarding a deal to abandon his nuclear arsenal.
“Within the first minute, I’ll know,” he said. “My touch, my feel — that’s what I do.”
Kim and Trump are to meet at the Capella hotel on the resort island of Sentosa,
usually better known as the site of Singapore’s Universal Studios amusement park.
Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, welcomed Kim and his entourage to the Istana, his palatial office, for talks laying the groundwork for Tuesday’s summit. Trump is due to meet with Lee today.
“From our point of view, it’s important that the meeting take place and that the meeting sets developments on a new trajectory — one that will be conducive to the security and stability of the region,” Lee told reporters here.
Also today, Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, who has helped lead pre-summit negotiations with North Korea, will lead an administration working group with a North Korean delegation at the Ritz-Carlton, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement late Sunday.
The North Korean leader landed at Singapore’s Changi Airport shortly before 3 p.m. Sunday and traveled in his armored Mercedes-Benz limousine through one of the island state’s swankiest shopping districts to the five-star St.
Regis hotel.
The streets were lined with tourists and journalists trying to catch a glimpse of the enigmatic North Korean leader, who has embarked on his farthest journey — and the journey with the highest stakes — since taking power at the end of 2011.
Kim’s trip was prominently featured in North Korea’s state media this morning.
The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the Workers’ Party, featured his departure in a full-color twopage spread, declaring on the front page that he was
leaving in a Chinese plane for a “historic summit” with the U.S. president.
Ever since Trump shocked allies, White House officials and, by some accounts, the North Koreans themselves when he accepted Kim’s March invitation for a meeting, the two leaders have lurched toward an uncertain encounter that could affect millions.
“It’s unknown territory in the truest sense, but I really feel confident,” Trump told reporters Saturday. “I feel that Kim Jong Un wants to do something great for his people and he has that opportunity and he won’t have that opportunity again.”
Trump’s engagement with Kim fulfills the North Korean ruling family’s long-unrequited yearning for international legitimacy, itself a substantial concession after more than a generation of U.S. efforts to isolate the country on the global stage.
“It’s never been done before,” Trump said. “And obviously, what has been done before hasn’t worked.”