What Trump got wrong, and right, on North Korea
The summit meeting in Hanoi revealed the hazards of his personal approach to diplomacy.
There’s no sugarcoating the failure of President Trump’s second summit meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
Despite the buildup — Mr. Trump’s fawning over the love notes they exchanged, the “beautiful” relationship they share and the predictions of great success — the “Joint Agreement Signing Ceremony” the White House had planned was canceled, and the scheduled news conference with Mr. Kim went forward as a solo act by Mr. Trump.
“Sometimes you have to walk,” he told reporters in Hanoi as two days of talks intended to put curbs on North Korea’s nuclear program came to an end.
It was a restrained, sensible reaction from a president who seemed to be in a headlong rush for any deal that would give him at least the appearance of a foreign policy victory. Maybe he learned something since the first meeting last June, when he declared the North was “no longer a nuclear threat,” only to learn that it still was.
The outcome in Hanoi, Vietnam, demonstrated the hazards of the personal diplomacy with authoritarian leaders that has become Mr. Trump’s stock in trade. From Vladimir Putin’s protestations of innocence on election meddling to Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s denial that he had the journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered, Mr. Trump has shown that he trusts despots over his own government. His fawning over dictators like Mr. Kim continues to erode the moral foundation that for generations has supported American diplomacy, and its notion of America’s role in the world.
This time he said Mr. Kim denied having known about the condition of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died of brain damage after he was released from a North Korean prison in 2017, “and I will take him at his word.”
While such one-on-one discussions can be fruitful — see Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik — the failure in Hanoi demonstrates again the administration’s unwillingness or inability to prepare adequately for high-stakes meetings.
What made the meeting collapse isn’t yet certain. If the American explanation is correct — that North Korea wanted all economic sanctions lifted in return only for dismantling its nuclear complex at Yongbyon — then Mr. Trump made the right call in walking away.
North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yongho, holding a rare news conference, said his government made a “realistic” proposal for a partial removal of sanctions. But when the Americans “insisted that we should take one more step beyond the dismantlement of nuclear facilities at Yongbyon,” he said, it became clear the United States “was not ready to accept our proposal.”
Yongbyon, which is used for making nuclear fuel and many other activities, is central to the country’s nuclear program, which includes 10 to 20 assembled warheads, fissile material for as many as 60 warheads and the missiles to deliver them. In a September 2018 declaration with South Korea, Mr. Kim said he was willing to permanently dismantle the complex if the United States takes unspecified corresponding measures.
In advance of the Hanoi talks, there were reports that the administration might agree to more economic interaction between North Korea and South Korea, a declaration acknowledging the end of Korean War hostilities, expansion of people-to-people exchanges and liaison offices in each other’s capitals.
But Mr. Trump has invested a lot in tightening sanctions on North Korea, his biggest leverage, and beyond Mr. Kim’s agreement to dismantling Yongbyon, Americans would want a full declaration of his country’s mostly hidden nuclear facilities, materials and weapons; dismantling of his nuclear stockpile and other nuclear facilities scattered around the country; and a verifiable halt of the production of ballistic missiles.
The administration still insists North Korea must give up its entire nuclear program, even though the American intelligence community has said that will never happen. Even if complete denuclearization is elusive, persuading North Korea to sharply limit its program is vital for Asian stability.
But that is best achieved through a stepby-step process by which both sides agree to take corresponding actions. So what happens now? It was a good sign that the president discussed the outcome in calm and measured tones. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who leads the negotiating effort, spoke of making “real progress,” without defining it, and expressed hope that the two sides “will get back together in the days and weeks ahead and continue to work out what’s a very complex problem.”
That suggests a willingness on the American side, at least, to continue working-level negotiations, which are the only way to achieve an agreement on complex issues. For that to have a chance, North Korea must concur and continue its 400-plus-day self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and ballistic missile testing. Mr. Trump said Mr. Kim planned to do that. Even if he does, the situation is far from stable, since the North continues to produce nuclear fuel and missiles.
No matter how chummy Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim may still be now, the window for diplomacy won’t remain open forever.