Trump touts progress before Kim summit
Leaders plan to meet one on one, leave city quickly
SINGAPORE – After more than a halfcentury of hostility between their countries, President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un came face-to-face to try to strike a deal over the latter’s nuclear weapons.
“Meetings between staffs and representatives are going well and quickly,” Trump tweeted hours before his sitdown with Kim. “But in the end, that doesn’t matter. We will all know soon whether or not a real deal, unlike those of the past, can happen!”
Trump and aides said they do not expect the summit to generate a comprehensive nuclear deal; they instead were looking to set up a process to negotiate an agreement in which North Korea gives up nuclear weapons in exchange for economic assistance from the United States and other countries.
The global village eagerly anticipated extraordinary pictures from Singapore of the voluble 6-foot-2 American president, who turns 72 years old Thursday, greeting the 5-foot-7, 34-year-old, reclusive dictator of North Korea, less than a year after each basically threatened to destroy the other’s country with nukes.
The leaders set the meeting for 9 a.m. Tuesday, Singapore time – prime time Monday back in the United States. The summit was to take place at a resort on Sentosa island, just off the Singapore mainland.
Trump once derided Kim as “Little Rocket Man” and pledged to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea if Kim continued to make nuclear threats; now the president says he is looking forward to getting to know his new negotiating partner.
Kim and his government are developing missiles that can carry nuclear weapons to the United States and once denounced Trump as a blustery “dotard.” Now they are willing to discuss denuclearization but also want the United States and other countries to lift economic sanctions that have damaged their country.
Technically, both nations remain at war; only a cease-fire ended the Korean War in 1953. Also on the table for Trump and Kim was a possible discussion of the prospects for a peace treaty involving South Korea, a development that some analysts believe could smooth negotiations on the nuclear weapons issue.
Both leaders have expressed optimism about their talks, yet each said he was prepared to walk out if things don’t go well.
Each had plans to leave Singapore hours after their meetings wrapped up, though Trump planned to speak to reporters about the developments. The president also has an interview scheduled with Sean Hannity of Fox News.
Trump entered the Kim summit just days after an acrimonious G-7 meeting in which he and longtime American allies argued about trade policy. Administration officials said allies like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should not have criticized Trump on the eve of events in Singapore.
Many analysts are skeptical Kim will ever agree to fully give up nuclear weapons, seeing them as essential to his nation’s security and his nation’s very self-identity.
Still, they believe the initial TrumpKim summit will at least yield an agreement to keep negotiating.