Danger signs
dismantlement of nuclear infrastructure that it took the North Koreans the better part of 40 years to construct.
In the short run, the damage from the failed meeting is likely to be considerable, and not just to Trump’s dreams of a Nobel Peace Prize, which he asked Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, to nominate him for.
The risk now is that having placed their personal imprimatur on the negotiations, Trump and Kim will be tempted to raise the pressure on the other.
In retrospect, there were warning signs that things were going south.
When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Pyongyang to turn a vaguely worded agreement to pursue denuclearization struck at the June meeting in Singapore into reality, Kim declined to see him. When he returned, he got an audience — but no inventory of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, its production facilities and its missiles. Without that, there was no way for the two sides to agree on a timetable for dismantlement.
For months, the North declined to deal with the State Department’s special envoy, Stephen Biegun. And when the North Koreans did, they explored many options, but made clear sanctions relief had to come first.
Trump made his own situation worse. He kept repeating that there was “plenty of time” to reach an agreement, taking all the urgency out of the issue.
When The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported on satellite evidence and expert analysis suggesting that the North was still producing nuclear material and expanding missile bases, Trump said on Twitter that there was no news in those reports. He blamed