Summit a ‘one-time shot’:
He will know ‘in first minute’ if he’s serious
SINGAPORE: President Donald Trump cast his summit tomorrow with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as a “one-time shot’’ for the autocratic leader to ditch his nuclear weapons and enter the community of nations, saying he would know within moments if Mr Kim is serious about the talks.
Mr Trump said Saturday he was embarking on a “mission of peace,’’ as he departed the Group of Seven meeting in Canada to fly to the summit site in Singapore. Saying he has a “clear objective in mind’’ to convince Kim to abandon his nuclear programme in exchange for unspecified “protections’’ from the US, Mr Trump acknowledged that the direction of the high-stakes meeting is unpredictable, adding it “will always be spur of the moment.’’
“It’s unknown territory in the truest sense, but I really feel confident,’’ he told reporters. “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.’’
“It’s a one-time shot and I think it’s going to work out very well,’’ he said.
The Trump-Kim meeting is the first between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader. Unlike traditional summits between heads of state, where most of the work is completed in advance of a photo-op, US officials say the only thing certain ahead of these talks will be their unpredictability.
Raising expectations in advance of the meeting, Mr Trump said the outcome will rely heavily on his own instincts. The US president, who prides himself on his deal-making prowess, said he will know “within the first minute’’ of meeting Mr Kim whether the North Korean leader is serious about the nuclear negotiations.
“I think I’ll know pretty quickly whether or not, in my opinion, something positive will happen. And if I think it won’t happen, I’m not going to waste my time. I don’t want to waste his time,’’ Mr Trump said.
“This is a leader who really is an unknown personality,’’ Mr Trump added of Mr Kim. “People don’t know much about him. I think that he’s going to surprise on the upside, very much on the upside.’’
The Kim sit-down comes as Mr Trump’s combative style of diplomacy has been on stark display this weekend in Canada during the annual Group of Seven summit. Tensions flared between Mr Trump and US allies over his protectionist economic policies and decisions to exit the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate accord.
After cutting short his participation over the icy reception, Mr Trump veered within hours from espousing a great relationship with the US allies to tweeting that his host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, had been “Very dishonest & weak’’ in postsummit remarks. He cited Mr Trudeau’s comments as a reason to withdraw from the G-7’s official statement, underscoring the unpredictable nature of negotiations with the American president.
As he looks to the Mr Kim meeting, Mr Trump is taking a high-stakes risk in hopes of containing the increasingly challenging national security threats from North Korea’s advanced nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Seeing Nobel Peace Prize laurels and eyeing potential to show up his critics at home and abroad, Mr Trump is granting Mr Kim the international legitimacy he’s long sought in hopes of securing a legacy-defining accord.
“He could take that nation with those great people and truly make it great,’’ Mr Trump said. “That’s why I feel positive, because it makes so much sense.’’
Mr Trump also praised the North Koreans, saying they have been “really working very well with us’’ during preparations for the summit, even though Mr Trump had cancelled the summit last month following a recent period of what he called “tremendous anger and open hostility’’ from the North Korean government. But then Mr Trump did a quick pivot, signalling almost immediately after scrapping the meeting that he was open to going ahead with it after all.
Delegations from both countries then launched into a frenetic period of negotiations that are expected to culminate with tomorrow’s meeting. “So far, so good. We’re going to have to see what happens. I very much look forward to it,’’ Mr Trump said.