Kim must have been tired because he missed a golden opportunity. All he had to do was just "promise" to completely denuclearize and Trump would have given away the farm.
1
I can't decide which was more embarassing for the United States - the humiliation in Helsinki or Hanoi. Both brought to you by the so-called deal-maker president.
5
So no Nobel Peace Prize this year?
4
Trump in a slump! The Times always tells it in pictures.
3
As a taxpayer I'm as sick of paying for these ridiculous vanity summits as I am of being sucked dry by Mar a Lago. Our president and his staff didn't even prepare ahead of time. This is just so the two worst leaders on the planet can pretend they're great. Oh and it also allows for trump to have another secret meeting with a Russian ambassador.
I expect he eats the note with his instructions on it afterwards. Very James Bond. I'm sure that music runs through his head while he's chewing.
4
He should make NK pay for the wall.
5
How much did this photo op circus cost the American taxpayer?
3
Good article. About sums it all up.
1
Well I guess DJT can kiss that peace prize goodbye. That's very sad since he's prevented a war and all. Probably at this very moment trying to figure out how he can undo Obama's with an executive order. Sorry for being snarky....
2
How could he have left out the true horror show - the blatant disregard for Otto Warmbier - brutally tortured and killed by his good buddy's goons? Taking Kim's side is a new low for Trump - but it seems we say that everyday.
2
'he gave Kim the enormous gift of legitimacy '
Ridiculous! If you have the ability to launch a nuclear weapon and you live on earth, you already have all the legitimacy you need.
I'm no fan of Trump but he's already made more progress with DPRK than Clinton, Bush and Obama did in 24 years.
2
I fail to see why anyone would give Trump even partial credit for this fiasco of summit. He achieved exactly nothing while giving "his friend", Mr Kim, equal status with the most powerful human being on the planet, complimenting his "strong leadership" and giving him a pass on the torture and murder of Otto Warmbier. “I don’t believe he would have allowed that to happen,” Trump opined, based entirely on his "trust" for this murderous dictator. This meeting with the leader of North Korea was an unmitigated disaster for Trump and, more importantly, the United States, and anyone who says otherwise needs to think again.
4
You say "normal" president, Mr. Kristof, but should have a less parochial understanding of what normal means. NK is a dictatorship, and Kim the individual has deterministic influence on everything there. It does not fit your definition of normal. In that part of the world, personal connections and interactions matter. The "cooked" relationship trumps the "raw" relationship. Besides, they don't have an identity culture that says they know everything about you by a peek of your skin color or length of hair. None of your "normal" presidents achieved anything. Relationship building among leaders between the U.S. and Asia is expensive and highly demanding personally, but necessary for effective communication, Of all people, Mr. Kristof should the last to insist on some dogmatic notion of "norm" in international issues. Peace!
Your headline should read, "After the Trump Failure." You see, Kim is a master "position bargainer" and he walked away in the same position as he entered the meeting with Trump. Trump is not a modern negotiator. As such, he looks at negotiations in which there is always one winner and one loser. Real negotiators assure that there are two winners. (There's an old negotiations cliché which goes....If both negotiators walk away from the table grumpy because neither achieved all of their goals, then that constitutes a successful negotiation.)
Trump is no master of the deal. If he were smart (Just joking!), he would leave diplomatic negotiations to the seasoned professionals in our global embassies and the State Department.
2
The best we can hope for now in all matters great and small is to mark time for a couple of years til we get some professional adults in the room again.
2
Americans, no matter Republicans or Democrats, including Mr. Kristof, got this attitude that USA can have tens of thousand troops around some other countries, In this case North Korea, threaten them with attack, and still expect them not only to accept this situation but also peacefully dismantle their arsenal and beg for America’s money. Sad!
2
The true reason why Trump ended the NoKo summit abruptly? Michael Cohen. Trump got too emotional to conclude the summit in any rational way. I think Trump walked out of NoKo summit because he felt his presidency is done after the Cohen testimony.
4
One of the key issues here is that we have a dysfunctional president* (Individual-1) who thinks that if he can deliver a widely successful outcome with NK that this would save him from his many (and deep) political and legal problems. He truly lives in his own fantasy world!
3
He can't get a border wall funded and built but we expect him to get North Korea to denuclearize? A win is now when he walks away from a meeting and nothing bad happened.
5
Betrayal of our values? Didn't Cohen make it clear that Trump has 'No Values' "No Morals"
His rushing in to cut a deal with Kim Jong il was another effort to try to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
What else should we expect of the world's number one narcissist?
3
Decades of traditional diplomacy have not been able to stuff a rabbit into the hat. So Trump is trying an unorthodox approach. America should give him our full support.
For that we need to draw a hard line between this effort and his domestic troubles. Congress could help by passing a resolution of support, letting Kim know that America has the Presidents back.
By-the-way, it doesn't help when pundits announce that Kim will never give up his nuclear weapons as that would spell the end of his regime. There is no data confirming this is so.
1
Too bad neither side had appropriate pre-meetings to identify a minimum set of things they could both agree with, and then a list of things they would also like to have.
I suspect some creative thinking might have insured both could claim victory even with a pretty minimal set of accomplishments.
I am surprised that Kim did not know better. He could have likely gotten some sanctions relief on, say, soybeans. Would Trump have allowed "observers" at the joint exercises? (as NATO has done with Russia from time to time)?
Failure to do the pre-work, and our impulsive President, seems to have led to an "all or nothing" situation.
1
Whatever the truth of this latest Trump farce, does no one else tire of the preposterously self-serious armchair punditry to be found on this page?
Was Mr. Kristof "right" the first time, when he disparaged Democratic party critics of the first meeting? Was he "right" yesterday"? Is "right" now?
Perhaps the real question is, do we have any reasonable basis to believe a political columnist is an authority on the matter, and why should he expect anyone else to share his own confidence?
Trump has showed real leadership here, first to develop a bridge to Kim, and now to not give away too much for too little. Trump does many things in bad faith, but this one seems to have been in good faith. I worry that Trump's critics fail to see the difference. If you criticize Trump for his good faith leadership, you miss the opportunity to encourage him to grow that part of his repertoire.
1
Thank God for a Democratic House which upstaged Mr Trumps self aggrandizement in Vietnam. I don't believe the president cut the meeting short because of Kim's actions but rather because he personally is in great danger at home. He needs to concentrate on new lies and cover ups to detract attention from criminal exposures at home. The "very stable genius" hasn't the ability to focus on more than one thing at a time and right now he is focused on his own hide.
5
This is nothing but this administration's another debacle on N. Korea, Aren't you suppose to have the deal negotiated before you bring in the president for final formal signature? I thought that's why we have a state department who hash out the nitty gritty and make the president look good for the signing ceremony.
Since when does a President of United States make one on one deal of this magnitude except of course our Real Estate Moghul of a president (FOOL)
SHAME ON ANYONE WHO BACKS THIS PRESIDENT.
6
I'm wondering if there was a side deal made. Maybe we'll soon see a new resort in Pyongyang.
2
Am I the only one wondering where the South Koreans are in this whole "deal making". Did anyone ask them what they wanted?
So much tax money spent on this trip and all the Trump family trips. All waisted for a president and his “high ranking adviser-relatives” and who are equally grossly under skilled for serious government positions.
What is so astounding is that long-standing elected officials still support Trump and go along with using millions precious tax money for flying them around the world.
3
Could someone explain what I think I heard one commentator state that one day before the talks broke down that trump agreed to N Korea’s demand that there be no inspections or accounting of the nuclear facilities and weapons.
Trump is not the negotiator nor the leader he pretends to be. He telegraphs everything days to weeks ahead of any meeting. So it's no surprise that Kim would try to get more out of Trump than Trump would give. After all, Trump was saying only a few days ago that he would accept cessation of nuclear testing as a positive outcome. But he didn't get even that.
Perhaps the real negotiators can yet find agreement behind the scenes. We will have to wait and see. But we can be certain that Trump will never pull a rabbit out of a hat, even if his minions stuff it in, because he doesn't plan far enough ahead for that nor are his goals ever clear, even to him.
3
So many problems with Kristof's limited understanding of US/North Korea relations but to highlight just one - does he give no credence to the NYTs lead article report that Ri Yong-ho said the North asked only for rescinding of sanctions that harm ordinary Koreans, e.g. ban on export of textiles. Not such a huge ask in return for dismantling in front of observers the North's main fissile material production complex.
2
Trump may have been right to walk away from the talks, but that’s not really the point here. He never should have tried to negotiate alone in the first place, because he botched things in living color at public expense.
Some letter writers said that, well, Obama never got N. Korea to denuclearize, so don’t knock Trump. But other leaders at least brought in the experts before failing. Trump was merely feeding from the ego trough in Vietnam, with zero preparation.
5
Reykjavik is no comparison. There, two equivalent military powers were confronted. As in the Bay of Pigs aftermath, it was a high-stakes game, who will blink first. They both knew they could cause enormous harm to each other, with no certainty as to who would suffer greater devastation.
It is not the same with North Korea. If (pray to God it'll never happen) there were to be nuclear war between the two countries, there is no question that the US ( at enormous cost to the nation) would obliterate North Korea out of the map. The US has thousands of nukes, NK a few dozens.
Only a useless, incompetent chancer like Trump puts himself in a position in which he makes an equal of someone who is not. Which works to the full advantage of the promoted lesser partner. Kim, who unlike Trump is not a fool and has a very clear understanding of his game, will win every time.
3
As this one-night stand is over, will Trump be writing a $130,000 check to Kim?
3
Someone should ask Trump what Putin thinks his next move should be.
2
Imagine the mood of our 'Child in Chief" right now. No Nobel Peace prize and litigation at home.
Perhaps a dangerous time.
4
Big waste of time PR stunt is what this was about. Gee, Gee, he finally made it to Vietnam 50 years late. I thought there was going to be an agreement to sign that the Korean War was over and Mr. Trump would bask in his Nobel Prize. Wonder what he will tweet now since he does not seem to talk. How evil Kim is and how he is going to see fire and storm like never before. Trump was disgusting with his he writes beautiful letters and we are in love. Will it now be he is evil he kills and starves his own people and has concentration camps. You know a lover spurned. What Trump has demonstrated is his total lack of knowledge of foreign affairs and why one has professional diplomats that create relationships, work out the details, not this last minute seat of the pants stuff like he does. In his world of unreality he really seems to believe it is like his TV show and what now is Kim Fired.
3
Will we ever see the day that our so called President condemns North Korea for the concentration camps it operates in which whole families are incarcerated for political crimes? Will we ever have a discussion of why we are still at war with North Korea instead of all the nonsense of Trump trusting the leader of a country at war with the US?
1
No matter what happens or doesn’t happen, you’ll criticize Trump.
1
Trump once again is sticking up for a dictator. Nothing happens in a N. Korean prison involving an American that Kim wouldn't know about. But then, Trump also 'knew' that Putin wasn't involved in US politics because he told the truth.
Trump said, “Those prisons are rough, rough places, and bad things happened, but I really don’t believe [Kim] knew about it... he felt badly about it, he felt very badly, he knew the case very well but he knew it later.” Trump, speaking at a press conference after talks aimed at persuading Kim to give up his nuclear weapons collapsed, added: “You have a lot of people. And some really bad things happened to Otto. Some really, really bad things. But [Kim] tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.”
[About Putin.] "He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle," Trump told reporters from Air Force One. "I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did."
4
Reality TV. After the dithering about nothing, Trump continues to pad his Trump inc. bank account. Meanwhile, I assume millions are dying in Yemen, India/Pakistan are on the brink of war, the world is burning, and Trumpublicans are planning their next tax cut. Side shows and circuses.
3
Nobody knew that high stakes international diplomacy could be so complicated.
3
Anyone comparing this to Reagan in 1986 doesn't understand history. Gorbachev actually had a vision of reforming the Soviet Union and warming to the West. By contrast, Kim is the world's most brutal dictator who needs nuclear power to remain in control. The idea that Trump made a power move by walking away is laughable. Kim's only mission was to play Trump's ego and position himself on equal footing with the American president, something that no previous president had allowed of a North Korean dictator. Trump got check-mated.
5
Trump continues to fail and conjures up lame excuses for why. Once again he let an inbred grandchild dictator best him. If there was a real emergency for Trump to handle, could he? Highly doubtful. His ego does not allow for facts or advice. His knowledge is less than rudimentary. Trump's effectiveness on the world stage continues to be infantile.
5
With all the investigations swirling around him, timed perfectly with the Cohen testimony, Trump is clearly damaged goods in the eyes of the world. Kim is smart enough to know this. Why cut a deal with someone who won’t be around long (well, unless you consider two years as “long”)?
Trump will be consumed for the next two years by these investigations. The end of Mueller’s investigation is only the beginning of all the trouble Trump faces.
Yet there’s a price to be paid. The most powerful nation on earth is essentially leaderless, and will remain so until November 2020.
3
C'mon, cut the guy some slack. P.T. Bonespur's debilitating condition that kept him reluctantly out of Vietnam in his youth probably re-appeared with a vengeance, it being medically a well-known geospatial affliction. What bravery, to walk away without limping.
4
Let's all hope that when NK returns to the table, that we have a legitimate, not subservient, non-criminal in the oval office.
6
How many times can you get away with saying "Trump was right to walk" at the front end of this article? This turns what could be a more nuanced discussion into a cliche. It's the job of writers to push us past generic word blocks, and the meme-ready thinking that goes with it.
2
Trump left with nothing and Kim got "America's" effusive praise as a "Great Leader" and "Not responsible" for Otto's death". In other words, like many predicted, Trump got played...
7
Good.Better a failure as trump is not to be trusted to do anything that benefits anyone other than himself.He should be considered the criminal he is and not allowed to meet with anyone, all communications should be monitored and he should wear an ankle bracelet.No more expensive trips to his tacky golf clubs.All of this til we decide how to get rid of him and pence.He is occupying the WH illegally and should be treated as such.
5
I am waiting for Trump to blame the Democrats for the failure of this summit. He will blame them for holding "fake" hearings that comprised his ability to negotiate. He is truly the Apprentice President and now demonstrates his inability to learn much less to lead - this is The Artlessness of the Deal. Trump refuses to use all the resources at his disposal - our diplomatic corps, our military, our intelligence community, our allies, the experience pf past presidents, old hands in Congress who have been to this dance before and American experts in the field. Instead he has elevated and lavishly praised a monstrous dictator whose power comes from his nuclear arsenal and the backing of China. Trump's utter incompetence is matched only by his monumental narcissism and corrupt nature.
7
Words of wisdom. However, good luck if you think that 'our' brutus ignoramus' (by choice) will pay heed and proceed with less arrogance (as he is convinced he knows more than the 'generals', the result of his deep ignorance and horrific 'ego'). The failure of Trump-Kim's love affair was predicted by those 'in the know', given how little preparation there was, and how much testosterone in display. Can't we see that Trump is a failure and a fraud as a businessman, bluffing all the way? This, when you add warmonger Bolton, is a disaster in the making. Poor U.S.A., giving a cruel dictator undeserved world status (I bet you didn't know which of the two I was referring to!).
3
This was a meeting of two dangerous narcissists, one a sadistic dictator and the other a lying con man. And the media covers it as if it were a real diplomatic initiative! Please tell me why?! Would anyone really believe anything either of them agreed upon? It’s the media suffering from a willing suspension of disbelief that allows this to go on.
4
I live very close to the USA border and I find it most extraordinary that we and the North Koreans know more about Trump's stand on human and workers rights than does the American media and Americans in general.
At the close of the Asian Summit President Duterte attacked Canada and our Prime Minister in particular for our stand on human rights. Duterte made it known that he had the total support of President Trump and our stand was in contravention of The Philippines' sovereignty.
I joined my wife in watching MSNBC this morning and was utterly and totally shocked at the propaganda fed its audience. The expert suggested that President Trump should have brought up North Korean human rights abuses.
There is one unmistakeable inconvenient truth and that is President Trump and the North Koreans march in lock step on human rights in both word and deed.
I write as best I can to try and make this a little better and more just world but the leadership of the USA and North Korea is not what this world of worldwide instant communication both North Korea and the USA are not friends.
2
I hate to say it, but fairness demands that I admit Trump did in fact show a modicum of self-discipline when he walked away from the negotiation table with no deal in hand.
Knowing his low-threshold character, he was likely tempted to make a grand, dramatic gesture—especially to recapture the spotlight from the Cohen congressional hearing. But he resisted any such impulse, and in so doing rightly rejected North Korea’s demand to terminate all sanctions.
One could argue that the choice was inevitable, that any American leader in that position would have walked. But we are talking about Donald J. Trump, lover of autocrats, and, most of all, lover of self, who is no respecter of boundaries. For him nothing is inevitable—even if law, morality, political expediency or common sense stand in the way.
It was that man who showed enough good sense to walk away from the negotiating table. And for that I must say “good job,” even if unenthusiastically.
1
@Professor62 Agreed. Diplomacy is a series of meetings, a series of incremental moves. Trump is creating these meetings, and has not "given away the shop". But he is being pilloried as the quarterback who has not throw the winning pass. Complex international relations are not like a football game that demands a winner and a looser.
When we see the phrase "The president was right to walk away..." in the NYT, it feels like the normalization process is well on the way. The whole thing was a fiasco. Maybe it could have been worse, but whole thing was a ridiculous degradation of the office of the president, just like the first one. It's not that he made a good decision in a difficult situation, it's that he's a nutcase, and we are in a world of trouble. Let's keep focused on that reality.
5
It's just your standard romcom script. Works like this:
1 The chemical equation.
"Little Rocket Man", and "I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire."
There's chemistry here, folks!
2 The cute meet: catalyst:
First meeting, "they fell in love". Kim's a brutal dictator who starves, tortures and imprisons his own people. Trump is really jealous. Not Putin jealous, but jealous.
3 A sexy complication: turning point
Kim has his third meeting with Xi. Is Xi going to win Kim's affections over Donnie?
4 The hook: midpoint
They're going to go on a second date, folks!
5 Swivel: second turning point
Undeniable intel from US intelligence agencies that N Korea has more sites than previously declared.
6 Dark moment: crisis climax:
Failure of second summit, in spite of Trump declaring Kim an "intelligent, great leader"
7 Joyful defeat: resolution:
Trump and Kim eventually sign a meaningless treaty. Putin builds his gas pipeline though North Korea, undercutting more expensive shipped US LNG. The US withdraws from the Korean peninsula, and Xi continues his strategy of economic dominance. Post impeachment, Trump pens letters to Kim proposing a Trump tower in Pyongyang. Kim doesn't answer.
9
North Korea is perhaps the only country in the world that actually operates Gulags. The savage conditions in the camps are well documented and were for a time visible on Google Earth. The sight of our nation's flag standing next to those of Mr. Kim's was nauseating. Even more so was the sight of our "commander-in-chief" cravenly fawning before a dictator who is fond of dispatching his enemies in a hail of anti-aircraft fire.
As unsettling as Kim's provocations are, that's all they "are." He's not a serious threat to the U.S. given the size of our nuclear arsenal. The sanctions are working. For the sake of the millions Kim has incarcerated, we should keep the heat on him until his regime caves.
2
"Distasteful" is not an appropriate word for Trump's obsequious attitude to thugs and murderers. I do like NK's word "bamboozled," and add it to my list of bullying, blarney, and baloney, all of which may serve a head of a family business in NYC. But they are no substitute for the tried and true norms of inter-state diplomacy accepted around the world. Trump wanted to shake things up, and in the process has alienated and insulted allies and friends. To pressure NK, we need the help of China, whom Trump has antagonized, and of Russia, to whom Trump has surrendered.
4
This summit was a failure because the president tries to do everything the easy way. Instead of reading the entire book, he chooses to use Cliff Notes. Love letters, compliments and using his gut just Doesn't cut it. I'll bet that he's been using shortcuts all of his life.
3
"The president was right to walk rather than accept a bad deal, but look out ahead."
What "bad deal" was on the table? What was there to be accepted or rejected?
There was NO deal at all since the trump administration had only ignorant trump as the sole diplomat and negotiator.
2
I guess my first question is, why does anyone accept any representation from President Trump about what happened, and his stated reasons for the talks breaking down. My observation is that he is not a reliable source of information. It turns out lying all the time matters, and it erodes any ability to accept him as a source of valid information, which is really scary regarding such a serious issue. The lying is a real problem, and can't be dismissed as Trump being Trump (as if that isn't crazy to even have to write). That said, I agree, look out for what comes next. Hopefully NK stops overt provocation, and President Trump does not have to be involved in this issue any longer. It is way above his knowledge base or skill set.
6
I heard on one of the morning news reports that another possible reason for scuttling the talks was Kim's bringing up the indelicate matter of the Mueller investigation. Has anyone else heard this? In any event, it would not surprise me to hear that Kim, or any foreign leader for that matter, would voice reluctance to strike a deal with the US not only because of the looming Mueller report, but now also because of all these growing additional legal perils reflecting the possibility of a shorter term. It seems the whole world is on to the reality of Trump's-as-Problem and wants little to do with him. If for no other reason than we need someone who can actually effectively represent the US in talks and agreements with other countries, Trump has to go.
4
I always look at these talks from the perspective of Kim Jong-un. In doing so, I realize that nearly every response to his actions, outside of complete isolation and disengagement by other nations, serves to benefit his leadership. Every time other actors become nervous as a result of his nuclear tests or threats and call for a response, he receives much desired attention and he wins. Every time a powerful nation like the U.S. prioritizes him as a world threat and part of a 'axis of evil', it elevates his status and he wins. And now, regardless of the outcome, a direct meeting with the most powerful leader in the world legitimizes his leadership and he's won.
After this 'on-the-job training' administration departs Washington, we must return to a policy of isolation because it's the only one that actually hurts the DPRK and its leader.
1
So much for the Nobel Prize.
For once Trump made the proper move.
However one wonders why he (or any other politicians and diplomats for that matter) put so much hope in meeting Kim.
The man is the leader of a rogue state and knows perfectly well what happened to Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, other rogue states leaders.
Apart from leading a buffer state between China and the western world his only asset is the bomb ; otherwise nations will do everything to eliminate him. Why would he give it up ?…
So this summit failure was highly predictable, the more so that I don't feel USA worked a great deal in preparing it.
2
The idea of relaxing sanctions on inter-Korean projects in exchange for a nuclear moratorium might have the disadvantage of enriching Kim Jong-Un's regime and enabling it to do more mischief, which is exactly what conservatives point to in their criticism of the Iran-Nuclear deal.
2
How is it possible not to include Trump took Kim's word claiming he had no knowledge of the torture Otto Warmbier endured while writing this Op-ed? Trump's lack of compassion for other people's children is legendary from a Gold Star family, parents of Parkland students, the widowed wife and Mother of the abandoned serviceman in Florida to children lost at the border who will never be reunited with their families. Compassion and empathy are qualities a great leader possesses, I can see no virtues in Trump at all.
7
The collapse of Trump’s summit with Kim was made inevitable. The two have been misreading each other’s intentions since their first meeting.
Trump had become more fixated on what he saw as a close personal bond with Kim, a leader half his age, but more prepared and intelligent. He was flattered by Kim’s hand-delivered letters, that said little about what denuclearisation. Kim had taken Trump’s words: “We fell in love ... He wrote me beautiful letters” at face value, and overplayed his hand on having all sanctions lifted.
Trump walked away from the summit without conceding to Kim. But the young dictator has demonstrated his capability of playing hardball. He hasn’t left Hanoi empty-handed, because the summit with Trump has boosted his legitimacy at home that he has convinced an American president to meet him again in less than a year. He might continue to play his game, hoping Trump would change his stance.
The summit has also left the door open for negotiations to continue. Trump must have noticed that Kim is a “tough cookie” and praised him, stressing that their meeting has been friendly and constructive.
Kim has already made big strides toward undercutting support for sanctions in Beijing and Seoul. He may try to keep pushing them farther away from Washington's maximum pressure.
Trump said Kim vowed to maintain his moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests. The lack of an agreement doesn't mean all sides must immediately revert to crisis mode.
3
There was no deal unless you believe NK was any more likely to give up its nuclear program than Israel or Iran. Why anyone ever took this stunting seriously is a mystery. I suppose the media needs "Drama" to fill spaces.
3
@@John: it was a good publicity stunt for POTUS Tump (Dreams of the Nobel prize swimming through his orange skull); Heck, all the Rigmarole of security, airplane fuel, etc. I wonder how much this set taxpayers back?
3
Some good can come out of this. Giving North Korea a chance on the world stage, legitimizing their regime, trying to talk to them face to face etc.. all will help ease tensions in the long run. It is isolation that causes dictators to do something crazy and showy. Kim knows he was given a chance, and he knows he also blew it. That will curb his tendency to test more weapons and build more nuclear arsenal...because he had the world come to him to make a deal, and he failed at the chance, and he knows they will not come back so easily next time..
Being the first to extend a hand does give one the advantage sometimes... even though Trump did it for all the wrong reasons..
It was a disgrace to side with Kim over Otto Warmbier's murder. All say he walked away before he gave up the store; I disagree. He gave up American truth, dignity and support for Warmbier's family.
4
Will our Fake President begin, again, to ratchet up his “Little Rocket Man” escalation scenario as a cynically calculated “distraction”, when his perilous, investigative domestic threats start mounting, which they surely will? Remember that the fundamentally unpatriotic, narcissistic Trump, who was willing and prepared to attack the legitimacy of the 2016 presidential election had Clinton been elected, potentially creating civil discord, would stop at nothing even if it imperiled the country. We have a dangerous, “loose cannon” in the Oval Office.
4
As a PR stunt - which it was - this "summit" was a smashing success for both parties. Both men being afflicted with narcissistic personality disorder, each walked away greatly enhanced... a legend in their own minds.
Kim's stature was further elevated by sharing the stage with the chief executive of the most powerful nation. Whatever he has in mind for his own people, he can snap his suspenders over that achievement.
Trump very likely sees his walk-away as a "win" in his distorted worldview. The great deal maker, you see, left the bride at the altar. By golly, that'll teach the Little Rocket Man a thing or two!
People, the U.S. has opened negotiations with N. Korea before, but never has a president attended a "summit" with whichever Kim as in power at the time.
The reason for the lack of a "summit" was clear enough. No previous president thought for a second that a Kim would give up his nuclear armaments, so why expose the chief executive to embarrassment while indirectly legitimizing the Kim regimes? Nukes were, and are the only card they have to play!
Leave it to Trump to tilt at that particular windmill. He'll find a way to fashion a "win" out of it, no matter what.
78
@CPMariner
When the current head of the Intelligence Committee
reported that Kim would not give up his nukes, Trump
commented that the committee head should go back to school and Trump is rumored to be considering his replacement.
12
@Neil
Here's how to get a job in the Trump administration, assuming one is dumb enough to want to throw his integrity and reputation into that rancid stew.
Just rehearse these phrases, over and over:
"Yes sir, Mr. Trump!"
"Whatever you say, Mr. Trump!"
"It's an honor to work for you, Mr. Trump!"
7
The US bombed North Korea savagely. destroying most of the nation. General Curtis LeMay estimated 3 million N Koreans were killed, in violation of international law, a large dam was destroyed, killing tens of thousands of civilians. Since the war the US has imposed sanctions, has regular flights of bombers along its border, while South Korean troops regularly hold maneuvers there. N. Korea may have the worst regime in history, but twice the US has ended agreements in which they had agreed to stop testing.
It's obvious we can't have it all our own way. If we stop the intimidation the world will be a much safer place,
1
Trump is doing what weaklings always do: he says nice things about the people he's meeting with while treating the countries or organizations that these people represent as the enemy, Those great guys and good friends he has in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and the PDRK just keep on doing things that are hardly in the best interests of the U.S. but, hey, they're goodfellas who have their own problems and are responsive to the demands of their own citizens and all that garbage. No doubt this is the way The Donald operated in the worlds of big business and high finance but it certainly isn't working for him (or for us) now.
3
Kim would be stupid to give up his nuclear weapons after what we did to Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi after they gave up their weapons. Kim is not stupid.
Saddam Hussein never had nuclear weapons.
1
This conman Trump is being played like a cheap, made in China yo-yo.
What a disgrace to see little rocket man drag unprepared, incompetent Trump half way around the globe just to embarrass the United States in front of the world.
No worries, Trump was upbeat! “we had a very nice dinner, and we shook hands!” as Trump was kicked to the airport by this two bit NK tyrant.
2
Quote:
"President Reagan famously marched out of a 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, rather than accept an arms control agreement with Russia that he regarded as flawed. A year later the Russians returned with better terms..."
Please repeat after me: "rather than accept an agreement with THE SOVIET UNION" and "a year later THE SOVIETS returned with better terms"!
This is not just nitpicking over semantics. It is actually very important to understand that today's Russia - the country that is currently threatening us with nukes and interfering with our elections - is in fact an entirely different entity from the one the U.S. was facing during the Cold War. It's been almost 30 years since the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended. Should have been enough time to grasp the distinction.
2
@Leonid Andreev That said, the analogy with the 1986 summit in Reykjavik is very apt. In that by having met (twice!) with Kim Jong-un Trump has effectively elevated Kim to the level and statute of Mikhail Gorbachev back in the 1986: that of the leader of a legitimate superpower, worthy of negotiating with the United States over nuclear disarmament, as an equal!
This is the only thing Kim wanted out of these utterly fake talks - and Trump has given it to him, all of it, without getting anything back.
"The Art of the Deal", ladies and gentlemen.
4
Anyone who believes that Trump can convince Kim to denuclearize, also believes that Trump can convince Putin to allow a Trump Tower on the Moscow skyline.
Sheer folly!
1
Summit begins.
Trump: “So, let’s make a deal!”
Kim: “I don’t want to deal with a racist, a con man, and a cheat.”
Summit ends.
4
I thought the "look out ahead" provocation in the headline might also warn all of us about what Trump does when he loses --- and who might pay the price for the repair his ego now needs. More assaulted children in the concentration camps at our border? A war with Venezuela?
1
They must be celebrating in North Korea as their Dear Leader was once again elevated to the status of a prominent world figure who forced the American president to go home. I'm all for diplomacy and making the world safe, but Trump had his eye on a Nobel Prize and nothing else.
3
As usual, Trump always thinks he knows best. I hope this put him in his place, so that he will let knowledgeable and experienced professional diplomats and negotiators, like Lighthizer, do their jobs, and then he can go in for the photo op!! He is just the worst negotiator in the world, thank goodness Pompeo didn't let him give away the farm!!
2
Thank you for your reflections, however you forgot to mention that while in Hanoi and when asked about Otto W., the young American whom North Korea gave brain damage to and sent him home, only to die, Trump said , “I ask him about it and he said he didn’t know. I believe him.” This was the most disgraceful statement ever made by a U.S. President, who believes Putin, Kim, Fox News and Dennis Rodman more than his wife, US. Intelligence, and his own Cabinet.
3
@TMOH
Otto Wambier was a tall, well fed American being held prisoner by mal-nourished, growth stunted and very bitter North Korean soldiers who have been propagandized their entire life to hate Americans. It is very easy to believe that his mistreatment at the hands of his captors occurred without the direction or involvement of the Chairman.
45 is an incompetent egomaniac, knows nothing about diplomacy, separation of powers, indeed, our Constitution. Wise people seek advice from experts in specific areas, realize that no one knows everything, but 45's ego won't allow this.
3
Why no discussion and negotiation of human rights? Kim is a brutal dictator that kills, maims, tortures and starves his own people. He oversees a network of concentration camps and ghettos that rivals the worst in the history of human suffering. That Trump "loves" this guy and cozies up to him is an abomination. I'm surprised at you Mr. Kristof of all people, for not mentioning this.
2
I guess you could say Trump got a ‘Dear John’ letter, or to rephrase, a ‘Dear Donald ‘ letter. The love fest is over!
That photograph of Kim and Trump with Trump staring at the floor says it all.
1
All trump accomplished by staging this show was to once again demonstrate his incompetence and make a fool of himself (and by extension the US). The apprentice president... who knew getting a peace prize would be so complicated?
The world watches, in embarrassment (for us), in disgust and in horror. Our enemies however, are no doubt amused and jubilant at their good fortune.
3
This is why summits happen when the groundwork for an agreement is already complete. While Trump had no choice but to walk, he has succeeded through his amateur hour diplomacy in normalizing a vicious murdering thug and Kim has succeeded in turning a pariah nation into an equal partner with the most powerful nation on the planet. Sad.
1
A big sigh of relief. Putin must have told Donald no.
As I write this, I 'm listening to DJT giving an,
imho, very competent 40 minute press conference.
My own low expectations, thankfully, do not feel to me as depressing.
DJT does not come across to me as crude,
and if I were a bettor, he'll win 2020.
Of course I can well be wrong, while my vote
shall not be approval of DJT's GOP.
They are his yes men fools, no matter the
POTUS press conference today.
His next outrage certainly shall p me off,
The Dunning–Kruger effect in operation. A smart person would realize his limited abilities and would really on experts. The stupid person thinks he knows it all.
2
The stable genius is neither. Does this mean he won’t be getting his Nobel Prize ??? Raise your hand, if you didn’t see this coming. Anyone? Hello ?
SAD.
4
The dullest episode of the Trump show ever! Does this mean no Trump condos on the beaches of North Korea? No Nobel Peace Prize for Kim and Trump? Oh, well. There's always next year.
3
Trump believed he would be able to get a deal with Kim Jong Un do to his 'great friendship'... my friend” and a “great leader,” and, last year, asserting that Kim had sent him “beautiful letters” and that “we fell in love.”
This shows just how stupid Trump is. Kim is a ruthless dictator who isn't charmed by such words. I'm just glad that Trump left before he did some real damage. Work should have been done before hand by the State department but the people capable of doing meaningful negotiations have left.
Trump wanted more time on stage to bloviate. This time it didn't work for him.
3
Trump is a disgrace through and through. A diplomatic anomaly, an embarrassment to the nation and the world, he needs to be removed from office by whatever means possible, including but hopefully not limited to, losing the 2020.
It would be great if 2020 ends up being the true vision and those who once supported him see him for what he is. Then they finally have a new view of what a president should be and elect someone capable, ecperienced, worthy.
Perhaps Trump is finally realizing that he's in over his head.
1
Trump just cannot help acting the fool. First, he sets up the Kim meeting with the expectation it will pave a yellow-brick-way to a Nobel Peace Prize and the chance to wave his (small) middle finger at Obama. Second, he bloviates for weeks about his outsized expectations for the event, fawning all over another dictator BFF, thus debasing himself--and his country--in the process. Then comes the event--and poof! There go his warm dreams for a trip to Oslo! And his art-of-the-deal persona takes another low blow to the solar plexus, as another little dictator has his uppity way with the delusional Trump. I suppose we should all be grateful that Kim made a strategic error, as Trump was on his way to giving away the store. Now, following the debacle in Hanoi, Trump would be better off just keeping to the Oval Office or the golf links where no one can make a fool of him, unless it's himself.
3
Look at who we are talking about here. Neither of these "men" are real leaders. Both of them inherited their positions in life, neither earned them. They are both preening for attention and are more interested in looking good than doing good. How are we to expect anything good to come of a meeting of such weak, pathetic creatures?
3
Quit trying to normalize Trump and his administration, quit trying to pretend that Trump cares about America or peace, and quit trying to pretend that Trump is a negotiator. No one, least of all Trump, arrived in Hanoi prepared to negotiate anything. This is all about clueless, needy, national embarrassment Trump being played skillfully by a third world dictator. Kim baited his hook with a Nobel Prize, one bigger, shinier, and goldier than Obama’s. Trump took the bait and has been being reeled in ever since.
3
The real reasons Trump went to North Korea now were to get out of town during the Cohen hearings and to keep his hopes of a Nobel Peace Prize alive. He must have known this would be the outcome, given Kim's history and hollow promises.
2
Who would have thought to work out a deal in ADVANCE of the President flying into a summit with Kim?
This administration is completely incompetent,
and the prospects will not get any better.
4
Knowing what the world knows about Trump , does anyone really believe Kim would do a deal with him?
1
well trump still has the Venezuela thing to make amends. now who would want to get rid of a president during or immediately after a successful military venture. just like iraq the media has softened up the public for escapade. success is just around the corner.
1
i've been reading a lot of 'betrayals of american values' and 'this isn't who we are' and 'we never expected that to happen here'.....
it might time to can those phrases/cliches.
also, as for trump's personal relationships with other world leaders....
someone once said that nations don't have friends, only interests.
trump, who seems clueless about the rest of the planet, might want to brush up on a few things.
trump, as he bellows regularly, is really smaht! i went to whahton'....
seems to be a party of one who believes that fiction.
1
Foreign leaders are quickly figuring out how weak a leader Trump is. They know his vanity needs to be massaged and therefore can string him along, making him even more desirous of a deal so as not to look foolish..
But the biggest weakness of a corrupt Trump is whether he will be around long enough to follow thru on any of his promises.
Trump weakens America daily because the world sees how easily o weak Americans chose such a buffoon to lead the most powerful country on earth.
May we never make the same mistake again.
4
I don’t think it was a failure. It was a charade and a debacle!! It probably wasn’t even meant to be a success! How could it?! Have all the past presidents of the the US been fools?! Perhaps, it was a mere distraction? It’s a real possibility when dealing with a reality star with so much bad publicity, including a congressional hearing at the time of the summit! Maybe it was meant that way? Which suggests there will be another one sometime when things heat up again for Mr. Trump in Congress, or he’ll make up another to trip to somewhere else around the word!! We know Africa is probably out since he called them “shitholes!” Perhaps somewhere in Europe? How about a visit with the Hungarian despot?
2
Kim set out a trap for Trump: meet without pre-conditions. No prior president would bite, but Trump of course a victim of his own ignorance took the bate.
The first and second summit only help Kim, he continues to be a player on the world stage, keeps his nukes as a pawn and has achieved a detente with China and South Korea.
Trump has been played and he very likely starts to realize this.
Fools go on fools errands: Dunning-Kruger effect.
1
Nicholas Kristof is entirely correct in pointing out the difference between what Trump and "normal presidents" do. What type of leader tweets that the threat of nuclear war is over, or talks about "falling in love" with a dictator?! High stakes diplomacy, with the fate of the world possibly hanging in the balance, should never be conducted this way. The fact that Trump is campaigning for the Noble Peace Prize further adds to the nonsensical nature of these negotiations. Rather than approach the summit with the dignity expected of a U.S. President, Trump has turned it into a reality TV show like the Apprentice. In doing so, he has further denigrated the Office of the Presidency. Making a fool not only of himself, but of the U.S. Instead of listening to his advisers (some of whom are capable individuals), Trump plunged head-first into waters without testing them first. Leaders think before they speak and act. But, not Trump. He, feeling that he knows more than his own experts, thought he could mesmerize Kim Jong-un with his amazing intellect and charming manner, which are nothing more than a product of his delusional and dangerous mind. Its one thing for him to be delusional about the size of his inaugural crowd. Its entirely another thing for him to be delusional about something so crucial as international diplomacy and nuclear weapons. My only recourse is to pray that he is removed from office (by Congress or the voters) before he does any more damage.
5
"Unfortunately, North Korea is an otherwise unimportant country that gets attention only when it behaves provocatively. So its leaders have learned that their best leverage is to fire missiles, detonate warheads, or start up nuclear complexes."
Yes, so why does the West constantly overreact? You can't actually keep countries from getting nukes short of invasion, which is a horrible idea. The US needs to let China and South Korea deal with this. South Korea can ask for US help again once a better leadership team occupies the Oval Office.
1
To make a deal with Kim, one must assume that, while Kim will not give up his nukes, he likewise has no intention of ever using them. He banks on being seen as irrational, but his central goal is to remain alive and in power. Trump is an a lousy, easily manipulate negotiator, but the people who have his ear who believe Kim would launch a suicidal attack on Japan or SK are equally delusional.
Does anyone really believe that this summit had anything to do with N. Korea? It had to do with distracting from the Mueller report that everybody thought was imminent in February. Ironically Cohen reminded us how incompetent Trump is and how he knows only one way to negotiate - bullying.
This summit thankfully was doomed from the beginning. Trump shouldn't be making any agreements that will tie down future presidents and the country.
2
Of course Kim Jong-un is not going to give up his nuclear arms. He wants the sanctions lifted, but he also knows that without his nuclear arms no one would be talking with him. They are the only reason our current president was there. And they are the reason, along with his large military, that Kim remains in power. Kim wants a better economy in North Korea. He can do that with help from China, South Korea and Russia. He doesn't need the U.S.
Trump is an over-confident, ignorant neophyte who fails the Dirty Harry Rule: "A man's got to know his limitations".
HE believes he's re-made American foreign relations to the betterment of the nation. In fact, he's done nothing but damage them in terms of our alliances, our economics & trade, and worst of all, our national security.
He's helped Putin destabilize the European Union, NATO, "ratified" Russia's seizure of the Crimean Peninsula, ignored interference in elections, both ours and others, and then lies and claims he's "tougher on Russia" than anyone else.
He went to Hanoi totally unprepared. SMART leaders go to these summits with everything virtually pre-arranged. Not Trump. So it's no surprise he was "owned" by Kim Jong Un. The only smart thing he did was leave.
1
We need to stop focusing on this fantasy idea of nuclear disarmament and focus on the humanitarian crisis in N. Korea. Russia, China and the US need to work out a way to put someone in power who has interest in the N. Korean people rather than their own nutty agenda.
When I saw that fat arrogant little man (not Trump) and thought about how many people in his country are starving it infuriated me.
How can we in the economic west tolerate this little despot (again, not Trump)? The entire Kim dynasty must go.
Same old, same old.
Nothing accomplished.
Wasted time and money on a typical clown show.
Why is this madness even covered?
1
Trumps “fawning“ over Kim is beyond “distasteful”. It is obscene.
3
Looks like amateur night on the American side of that negotiation. Come in desperately eager to get a deal, then fawn over a murderous dictator. That must be some kind of an art. But not of the deal-making variety.
1
What a ridiculous premise - Trump did the right thing, the wrong way. I still can't figure out what Kristof's relevant credentials are. Doesn't he have a co-ed competition to conduct, where the "winner" gets to go on a trip with him? Nothing creepy about that.
The time to "walk" was when Kim refused to "hash out the details" with our reps. Kim may have thought he could outfox Trump, but Trump only went because he thought he could out-negotiate Biegun. Only an arrogant fool like Trump would have made that trip.
1
That habit Trump has of fawning over despots in the most florid terms of endearment is bizarre.
It may be that he's doing it to boost the prestige of despotism or at least to annoy the decent part of the world. Or maybe he's bragging that he's found new friends who matter more to him than the ones he inherited from previous presidents. That would be like him.
I suspect the true explanation is that this is his idea of an irresistible charm offensive: laying out a verbal red carpet of unparalleled plushness and garishness, just the kind of thick-laid flattery for which he himself is a sucker.
Still, it is annoying to hear him degrade his office and his country by declaring himself "honored" to meet with the likes of Kim or Putin.
Question: Did Trump keep the translator's notes this time too?
2
Does anyone else think Trump used Kim as a prop?
I was relieved when I heard that Trump and Kim walked away from any deal since I was concerned like many others that Trump was so desperate for a deal that he would give away the store.
Too bad that Trump was naïve and stupid to fly thousands of miles without a basic framework of what a deal would look like and didn't even have an agreement with Kim about what constitutes the definition of denuclearization before he made the trip.
This whole fiasco and waste of time and money resulted in an embarrassment for Trump who was unprepared and obviously doesn't know the first thing about NK.
National security advisors informed Trump publicly that NK had no intention of giving up their nuclear weapons.
He didn't want to believe them and decided to wing it like a kid who didn't study for the test.
Another day- another shining example of why Trump is utterly unfit to be POTUS.
1
Well, scratch out those names on the Nobel Prizes. Downgrade the title of Air Force One to Air Force 0.5. Put Sarah Huckabee Sanders into counter-counterclockwise spin mode. Don't even think of calling Michael Cohen "Mickey Cohen." Trump is strictly the empty, no-trump suit he's always been. Fake president; real (estate) crook. If the House and Senate need to clean house now. There's no longer any excuse to leave the broken shells currently in the White House. Put them back on the beach in Florida where they belong.
1
I'm no fan of this administration and I think this president is in all respects a rotten human being. That said, I can't believe even this administration would put this summit together without knowing what the bottom line was. Was this done intentionally to have this outcome in the belief that it would rattle Kim Jong-un? Or am I just underestimating how grossly incompetent this corrupt administration really is?
1
A lovers spat ???
Maybe Trump can console himself by sending another straw man to go pay for another obscenely overpriced portrait with Trump CHaritable Foundation money. That will make him feel,better.
It is the easiest thing for Trump to walk away from a deal, that is all he does. Making an actual deal takes work, something Trump would rather avoid.
1
Failure? Merciful heavens. Can it not instead be viewed as a step in a process--a step, mind you, that, to my knowledge no other president had accomplished? This all or nothing, win or lose, yes or no measure of life excludes any middle ground--the ground that is lacking in much of contemporary American discourse.
The sudden collapse of the Kim-Trump summit is more than just a "failure; " it's an epic failure borne of narcissistic delusions of grandiosity like a Novel Peace Prize and an equal failure to plan ahead and lay the groundwork for a positive outcome. You can't ad lib complex and serious negotiations without suffering an embarrassing and now dangerous failure. Between Michael Cohen's revelations and the collapse of the summit, there is a sense of increased insecurity and palpable fear.
Kim wants big asks for small commitments.
The US has always wanted huge asks for no commitments.
Kristof here suggests a compromise, a big US ask for a tiny commitment in return. That is a step forward for the US, but not any more realistic than what Kim did.
Small can only get small.
If we really want something big, we are going to have to reciprocate, like it or not.
As much as I can't stand Trump, I think he has shown us China's vulnerabilities more than anyone else has, and the Vietnam meeting place seems, well, brilliant, showing how a more recent combat enemy of ours has taken on our ways and is no longer our enemy.
Talks are better than no talks--even if they are just talks.
That said. He is all Cohen said and more.
I'm disappointed that Mr. Kristof has fallen for the U.S. propaganda line. There was no chance of NK denuclearizing without at least a peace treaty and a non-aggression pledge from the U.S. And NK knows how well such pledges can be relied on.
I'm not defending their terrible system, just pointing out that they are very aware of what its survival depends on.
Mr. Kristoff, as you are vastly more informed then Pres. Trump, it’s interesting to read your ideas for smaller steps to ease tensions between the Koreas in a better prepared negotiation, a negotiation starting at lower levels than the two leaders. From what I’ve read, the president of South Korea was not kept in the loop throughout the meetings, he was called by the president from Air Force One afterwards.
It is a relief that there was no bad outcome, I’d like to think that Donald Trump has learned that “ he alone can (not) fix it”, but barring the press, trusting Kim’s claim that he was unaware of Otto Warmbier’s grave condition, leading to his death quickly upon his return to his parents, and his effusive praising of the N. Korean dictator make that difficult. Thankfully, Trump did heed the advice of Pompeo, etc.and that is a good thing.
This was a clear win for Kim and his rapidly advancing strategy of minimizing the power and importance of the United States when it comes to relations between Korean Peninsula countries and their neighbors. By not taking Trump’s denuclearization-for-sanctions-relief bait, Kim demonstrated that the United States has no significant influence over North Korea. Now, Kim will resume his efforts to cut deals with South Korea, China, and Japan to improve North Korea's economy while making the case that it is in the interests of the Asian nations involved to scale back military and economic cooperation with the U.S.
Trump will continue to grovel for the appearance of peace and progress. Kim will continue to negotiate Asia-centric economic prospects while building an arsenal of nuclear and cyber weapons. In the end, Trump will congratulate himself for playing a self-satisfying game of checkers while Kim strengthens his position in a game of multinational chess that Trump refuses to acknowledge. It is still far from checkmate, but Kim is within a few moves of placing a lasting check on American influence over Asia-Pacific nations.
2
Can you blame Kim Jong Un from balking? Nuclear weapons are not the only issue, or even the biggest issue. Give up that bargaining chip, and he has nothing left. Economic sanctions can be lifted and then put back into place. But give up nuclear weapons and try to get them back again? Much harder.
The United States has shown itself to be a bully. We invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq on a pretext. We helped topple a legitimate government in Libya. We signed an agreement with Iran and then tore it up and slapped sanctions back on them.
So what if Kim Jong Un signs a deal with Donald Trump. Congress has already said that no sanctions can be lifted without North Korean human rights abuses being addressed. Even if the country gives up its nuclear weapons, sanctions could easily be imposed by the next president for that or some other reason.
We are far from a stalemate with North Korea, but any deal will be dicey on both sides. We need to step back from using our military and even economic power to be the moral police of the world. Instead, we need to let other countries handle their own internal issues as long as they don't threaten us.
John McCain when alive was the biggest cheerleader for American intervention across the world. We need to let him and his antiquated ideas rest in peace, and move on. Peace is more important than moral policing.
1
Maybe Kim was monitoring the Cohen story, determined The Donald was on the ropes and put forth proposals accordingly. Maybe it was Kim who walked?
Trump should have had the ghost writer of his book "Art of Deal" negotiate with Kim!
Trump bragged that he is the first relationship Kim has had with an American. Dennis Rodman will be miffed. Does Trump know that Kim lived and went to school in Switzerland? Trump is not the first westerner Kim knows.
Also, a Nobel Peace prize was already awarded to SK's president Kim Dae-jung for his Sunshine Policy. A second prize should not be awarded until something really changes.
We now know that President Trump never expected to win the presidency, that he is ashamed of his SAT scores and college grades, and that he doesn't read. All these things sure show when he is on the international stage.
2
Is Trump in love with this Korean leader or is he a racist? It could be neither, but it can't be both. There's just so much exaggeration coming from and directed at Trump - mostly among individuals who went to elite universities. The things that we taxpayers subsidize....
1
Clearly this was two egotistical boys playing at diplomacy. That said, we should be glad that Trump walked. It’s no victory, but it’s not the disaster it could have been.
I suspect that Trump's talk of building beach resorts in North Korea was an even less convincing "inducement" to diplomacy than than building Trump Tower in Moscow was. What's next, a ski lodge in Saudi Arabia?
The world's worst international bullies seem to recognize an amateur when they see one.
Everything Trump says is some kind of fantasy projection.
“Fantastic success.”
He's a "great negotiator."
He's "very smart."
None of it is true.
1
Only 614 days until November, 3, 2020. Let's hope that this man-boy President keeps a low profile going forward. He has already done so much damage to our relationship with our allies and our credibility in the world community of nations that America may never fully recover.
Did anybody really think Trump wouldn't be outfoxed and played by Kim?
1
Hold on a minute! Trump SLUNK away from the ill-conceived summit, his self-vaounted personal negotating "skill" having been proved another empty brag.
It's disgusting to see otherwise clear-eyed commentators echoing Hannity and painting Trump's "walking away" as some astute and noble negotiating strategy, when it is miserable, predictable defeat.
The "walk away! tactic works only when the other side wants a deal more than you do.
@Pat P
Those NK Sanctions on the US starting to bite? No, think ours on them are yet? Which side should want to make a deal more then?
My feet are tired of this dull dance.
As an American, I would love it if our Politicians had courage. Here's an idea--a really radical one!--let's get rid of OUR nukes as well. We don't need them, yeah? And we certainly don't want anyone else to have them, yeah?
Then let's go nuke for nuke.
That won't happen, because our Politicians are utterly spineless (except for... two? Bernie and AOC? I may be leaving two more out. Not sure.)
Let's elect some Politicians that actually stand for something. People that are willing to amend the Constitution--because it's clearly failing us. Let's elect some people that are willing to do the hark work needed to make a better world. Because--and I know many Fox News viewers will find this very surprising--America as it stands is not a Utopia. We can do a whole lot better. And y'know what? We need to do a whole lot better, too.
2
Trumps distraction from the Cohen hearings and the ones about to take place in New York was a bust as was his wall. Trump is looking weak and incompetent, not a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to him. The question is who if anyone in the former Republican Party will break ranks or go down with ship trump.
1
When Air Force One returns to Washington, D.C., from Vietnam, someone should tell Trump that his plane has been missing for five years and that he is no longer President.
2
Whatever you think about how cunning they are, Trump and Kim are two of a kind as pathological and tyrannical crooks. But we have a democracy that so far appears to be holding up. Kim has no such thing which is why North Korea is what it is while America tries to hold on to what it has struggled to become for the last 250 years..
Trump's nothing more than the arsonist who knows when to put his OWN fire out. But due to his impotent game-show host bravado, he can't even accomplish the false heroics motivated by same.
As if we needed another demonstration of 'Merica's artful dealer in action, there's this.
Too bad Kim isn't some woman the so-called president can send a fixer to 'fix'.
Methinks trade wars may not be the EASY win promised, either.
Well, at least we can look forward to the next Congressional hearing.
Apparently 40% of the US population has never read "The Emperor who has no clothes" or worse yet, they didn't understand it.
Of course Kim is never going up his nukes. His diplomats have told the US they are mindful of what happened to Qaddafi after he dropped his nuclear weapons development.
As much as I dislike Trump the person, it his non-establishment status and weird, ego-driven personality that drove him to the table with an equally weird leader of a country posing a serious threat to the safety and security of the United States. So far, things seem to be moving in the right direction. He has a seasoned Secretary of State and set of advisors who should be charged with 'preparedness'.
As much as everyone seems to be rooting for this negotiation to fail, all the while ridiculing our 'questionable' leader for being such a buffoon, I have to wonder if moves like this could have helped avoid the debacle in Iraq and Libya and the potential debacle that will likely occur in Venezuela if pushed down the traditional lane of 'illegal' regime change. Let's not get sidetracked by the person and focus on an opportunity to avoid creating instability in yet another region.
Such a bizarre spectacle. It's the job of State Dept. professionals to sit with their counterparts in a windowless room someplace hashing out all the details, coordinating with the administration back home. And if and when they finally manage to get a concrete agreement, fly in the President for the cameras to sign the deal.
Trump "walking away" here is not a sign of strength - it's a sign of incompetence, having flown to Vietnam at tremendous expense with virtually no preparation and reaping the expected result.
The Huffington Post reported the president said this after walking away from the deal proposed by North Korea. " I’d much rather do it right than do it fast.” [HuffPost]
Mr. president, you are confusing us ordinary Americans when just a couple of weeks ago you said regarding the Wall emergency, that "you didn't have to do it but I wanted to do it faster." Please give us citizens a break and be a little more thoughtful before making such quick responses. After all you are the leader (supposedly) of the free world and the world is entitled to a little restraint. Learn something while in Hanoi, namely, restraint.
Kim played him this whole time. Maybe the next president won’t be so egotistical and believe his own little mind games he makes up. Kim went through these exercises in futility because it was crazy Trump. They are not going to halt anything.
Before the summit, the narrative of the Beltway Experts was Trump the Bozo would get smoked by Kim. Now Trump suspends the negotiations because the deal North Korea tried was imbalanced. So the narrative instantly switches from "he will get smoked" to "Trump...nya, nya...failed to consummate the deal". The Experts retain their bubble faith that "Trump can do nothing right" intact. However - meetings happened, more will happen, paranoia is receding, and both sides are no longer swearing to bomb each other to ashes.
Wonder how much time Trump actually spent in preparation for such delicate diplomatic negotiations? Did he at least get the cue card briefings from the intelligence agencies and State Department experts he scorns, swallow his pride and take the time to study them during the long plane ride to Hanoi instead of obsessing about the Nobel prize and optics of his own self image. The American tax payers should get their money back for the gasoline spent on Air Force One and Donald's coiffure.
1
The leader of the free world has twice flown to meet in the backyard of the leader of one of its most brutal dictatorships and both times has come back empty-handed while the dictator has achieved validation of his murderous, oppressive, and dangerous regime. If President Obama had twice flown to Cairo to meet with the leaders of Iran or Syria and came back empty-handed, Congressional Republicans would have started impeachment proceedings. As long as they have enough power to secure tax breaks, deregulation, and judicial appointments, Banana Republicans do not care about anything else.
1
NK is never giving up their nukes. Maybe Clinton or Bush could have achieved that. But once Gaddafi was killed after giving up his nuke program, all chance vanished. And with a president like Trump, who backs out of treaties and deals without cause and lies constantly, why would any world leader think of making a serious deal with him? Our allies are simply waiting out Trump's time in office while our enemies like China and Russian--and North Korea---scramble to take as much advantage of him as possible before he goes.
Was it a waste of time. as he said to Pelosi and Schumer, to reopen the US government? A lot of time, jet fuel, and fancy entourage for something he was warned of by all the experts he lampoons. And oh yes, while he was away he missed "the (his) apprentice," — exit interview edition — in the House, with the GOP throwing stones. Sad.
We've witnessed a double-header in Michael Cohen's revelations of Donald Trump's criminality and the collapse of his summit with North Korea. These twin disasters for a volatile and unstable man place the nation and the world at risk as Trump, his narcissistic ego wounded, lashes out in retaliation and revenge in a dangerous and destructive rage.
Trump walks; nobody talks. It's as if trump never went to Vietnam.
Nothing new there.
1
This: "It’s perfectly appropriate to engage with ruthless dictators, but fawning over them is a betrayal of our values."
1
Oh, boy. Now, any time Trump can't lie or waddle out of a sticky situation, he'll just wag the dog, get in a twitter snit with rocket man and scare the bejeezus out of everybody in the world, except the 30 percent mindless baseless base.
Stay tuned to see how's he going to spin, for his base, no pesos for the wall, no dollars for the wall, no NK deal, no Nobel and the more and more real threat of impeachment.
This series gets somewhat better as it goes along though I'd give anything if I could turn off my TV and make it all go away.
1
I am afraid Kim has once again outmaneuvered our narcissistic President. Trump had to have this summit that he thought he could power from the top down. He doesn't understand that summits work from the ground up with thought and deliberations beforehand.
Excluding the reporters was icing on the cake for Kim, who understands that a free press is necessary for a democracy to function. Like most dictators, he does not tolerate freedom of speech nor freedom of the press.
On to the next Boy Blunder.
Let's see. The U.S. gets to end a nuclear arms treaty with Russia -- and still demands Kim Jong-un to completely denuclearize North Korea.
What could possibly go wrong?
Kim will never disarm, he and the rest of the world are well aware of what happened to Ukraine after it gave up its nukes.
I just can't figure out Trump or the GOP. Why are Cuba and Venezuela such evil places while NK is so great with a great leader? I really think that Kim and NK is the worse.
1
A competent president would have staffed this meeting well enough to have avoided the whole charade. Only his massive ego drove Trump to pursue the chimera of a deal.
Kristof's ideas or Trump's declarations of love between him and Kim? Kristof is a newspaper columnist. Trump is the President of the United States. I wonder what Nicholas Kristof has planned for 2020?
Mr. Kristof wrote, "It is also distasteful to see Trump praising Kim and...asserting that Kim had sent him 'beautiful letters' and that 'we fell in love.' It’s perfectly appropriate to engage with ruthless dictators, but fawning over them is a betrayal of our values."
Love is blind, and so is incompetence.
The parallel with Reykjavik is really poor. In 1986 Gorbachev was already a world leader commanding global respect. His actions after that summit further cemented his place in history.
Kim was a nobody in charge of a nothing country who bamboozled Trump into giving him a world stage to play on. Deal or no-deal, Kim walks away with a better global image, while Trump confirms his status as world-class clown.
Trump's power and prestige have been eroded by the on-going investigations and allegations against him, a situation of which the North Koreans are acutely aware. He is damaged goods, lacking the moral authority and gravitas to command respect in the international arena. The last two years of his presidency are beginning to look like a lame duck race to the finish.
I like people who were not shot down in Vietnam.
1
In our next episode of “Trump, the reality television President,” lots of pomp, circumstance, self-congratulation and taxpayer dollars later... terrible ratings!
You may recall Trump’s early communications with Mexico, in which he was told in no uncertain terms there would be no wall and our neighbor to the south sure as heck wasn’t paying if ever there was such a ridiculous construction project? Trump simply implored Mexico’s leadership to say a few words to make him look good, no matter what the reality of the situation might really be.
Here we seem to have more of the same. Did Trump ever really believe ‘he alone’ could accomplish what generations of far more skilled people could not accomplish over the course of decades of negotiations — and do it starting from a position of weakness, after signaling desperation to cut a deal quickly in order to declare victory and save face in the midst of a White House in crisis? If he did, he’s dumber than he looks. If he didn’t, it’s just more of the same old flim flam - lotsa sizzle, hold the steak. All hat, and not a head of cattle in sight for miles.
Now let’s have a grand military parade!
The Trump apologists conveniently leave out that Mr. Trump proclaimed last summer that he had solved the problem with North Korea and that is was no longer a nuclear threat and then just before the current meeting promised fantastic results (which I thought he had already obtained?). He got duped and now he is trying to look all leader-like in walking away. Better wipe that egg off your face though. But what is truly reprehensible is how Trump has fawned over a heinous dictator (and Kim isn't the only one). Repeatedly Trump has shown disregard and even disdain for basic American values and principles. It is so difficult to understand how he retains so much support in this country, regardless of political affiliation.
Does this mean the Nobel Peace Prize is also off the table? Asking for the majority of people who voted for Clinton and wonder what she would have done concerning North Korea.
Trump laments that U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises are "very, very expensive.” How much did this total waste of time cost the taxpayer? Not to mention the golfing.
So is Kim still a great friend who he loves? I wonder what kind of letter is in the mail.
@jhanzel
The letter will only say: Ha, ha, gotcha!
2
"Trump said, adding: “Sometimes you have to walk.”
Please, please, Mr. President, take a walk!
Now!
Trump finally goes to Vietnam, and FAILS.
Sad.
1
Perhaps Kim will behave less provocatively if the United States acts more consistently.
When will Kristof write on the Uighurs in China or is he typical of the bleeding heart liberal, who chooses safe topics to engage in moral posturing. Are his links to China too deep to pay the price of offending China? The low cost morality and posturing of the overpaid elite is disturbingly obvious.
The North Korean regime have always wanted direct talks with any of our many Presidents since the Korean War to get legitimacy. It just takes a fool like Trump to fall into that trap. His is zero accomplishment with this regard.
But he loved Kim, adored him.
While Trump is not a smart man, he is a wiley one and an ex TV reality show host. One should not preclude the possibility that since, unlike our other presidents who were often politically motivated but did actually care about the country, he will do what is best for Don and time a negotiating "breakthrough" for maximum political impact to impress his audience, the easily fooled American electorate. If this puts the security of theUnited States at risk, so be it.
I am skeptical of the motive for this meeting. I feel it was destined to be a no-starter with Kim, given the news that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also in Vietnam at the same time. I would bet my first born Trump met with Lavrov for the real purpose of the trip. Maybe setting up contingency plans if Trump is indicted or impeached?
They could have done all that negotiation by email or with anonymous diplomats. The meeting wasn't a failure. It served its own purpose.
Yes most Presidents send informed and experienced people to meet fr many hours ahead of any meeting. They work out, or do not work out , an agreement that is a "done deal". Then , the president gets his moment of glory by signing it in Public. Trump does not do this. His ego allows him to be the "smartest guy in the room" and does not need advice, he also assumes he will charm(con) the other guy. He loves the press, the TV and all the attention. This was a failure from the beginning. Un will not ever give up his nucs, its his only power.
This is the mark of an amateur, and a narcissist. At this level, summits are only called to ratify agreements already reached, they are in essence photo ops. This did not happen here because both leaders are convinced that only they are capable of negotiating a tough agreement. It is a major loss of face for Kim, since he cannot be in error, one of his underlings could very well get fed to the dogs (no, I'm not kidding). Trump, of course has no honor, so it is no loss for him.
There is one possible bright spot in this failure. As Fox news points out, it does send notice to China's President Xi that Trump is willing to walk away from a bad deal.
Why, pray tell, in negotiating a treaty with a hostile government run by nihilistic fanatics must Trump Inc think that it must reinvent the wheel? Wasn't a successful pattern of quid pro quo established by the Obama Administration in its lengthy but well sequenced negotiations over nuclear weapons, with the even more hostile, powerful and unpredictable radical Mullah run government of Iran?
Why must this President keep reverting back to his same familiar, but failed, pattern of gangster type negotiations that largely relies either on naked threats or on personal charisma and flattering appeals to 'Equals' , rather than the more modern business practice of negotiations based on non-zero sum gain; whereby it is made clear step by step how both parties either rise or fall equally, based on the outcomes of the negotiating process ? Or is this concept too complicated and unfamiliar for this Administration to grasp?
4
“Walking away,” whether from Pelosi and Schumer or Kim, seems to be Trump’s only negotiating move. No doubt when you’re bullying contractors such a demonstration that you need the deal less than they do can be effective. But so far in diplomatic negotiations it hasn’t worked very well, since it doesn’t represent a durable national position but just Trump’s personal petulance and limited understanding of the complicated international and domestic factors he’s dealing with. That’s why comparing this to Reagan’s breaking off US-Soviet negotiations is absurd. When Gary Kasparov sacrifices his queen, it can be the prelude to a brilliant endgame, because he’s a great chess player. When I lose my queen, it’s because I don’t know how to play chess. It’s disingenuous to suggest I’ve got some brilliant strategy. Sometimes failure is just that; failure.
3
The Con Don was simply trying to win a "popularity" contest with Putin and other International Mafia figures who want WW3.
He's a phony. A blowhard. A crook.
He has done more to try to destroy OUR world, OUR lives and OUR United States of America than anyone since actor Reagan.
He is a pox on civilazation and his stupidity and lack of any moral/ethical values or social conscience is a very serious threat to civilization.
He must be removed by people in power in OUR politicaly/legal/military/secret service complexes right now.
6
Should have been an easy negotiation.
Kim wants material prosperity and global integration, easy; costs us nothing to give.
We want denuclearization, also easy; costs Kim nothing and he saves billions in military spending and releases his scientists to focus on material development. His people's lives start to improve and they become happier. They become less likely to shoot him.
We think Kim will never give up his nukes because he fears invasion. Nope, the nukes are just bargaining chips and he will give them away for sanctions relief and normalization. Everyone, including China, wants incremental normalization.
China is not concerned (as you read) about Korean refugees - their Eastern Provinces went past the Lewis point in 2010 so they need many more workers.
Kim's nukes are designed for attention and national pride, that's all. They're not really needed because he has a huge conventional military ready to stop any invasion.
Plus a massive secondary reserve military in China, his protector.
Kim realizes times have changed and that the US has no interest in invasion (that's just his talking point) - and it didn't work last time, at all.
The only issue is whether North Korea develops with the Chinese model or the South Korean/American model.
He'll choose, with China's help, the China model. His developing early stage economy needs the China model. China is also the future, not the US, and their cultures are similar.
Trump failed at a easy win-win.
1
With normal presidents, summit deals are largely agreed upon ahead of time. As one veteran diplomat put it, presidents pull rabbits out of hats, after diplomats have worked diligently ahead of time to stuff the rabbits into the hats. But Trump has never had much patience for that meticulous diplomatic process, instead placing excessive faith in breakthroughs arising from personal relationships — and his faith was clearly misplaced this time.
This is what I was wondering. Where was the groundwork for this meeting? The result makes the U.S. look very unprepared.
2
While I agree with most of this article I'd like to point out that it might be time to retire the tired trope that it's a bad idea to give Kim the attention he craves. He's getting educated on how to act on the world stage. Better to learn that he can get more respect for engaging in diplomacy than in shooting off missiles.
1
Even in failed negotiations Donald is poster boy for deviancy down.
For Donald it seems each level of failure is somehow called a success and accepted as normal.
People are calling walking away a success.
If walking away is a success, it leaves the question of exactly who walked away?
1
Nice try. Hate to say I told you so but generational control, not economic prosperity, is the priority of the Kim regime. Control is only guaranteed by having military force - nukes being a critical part of this equation. This deal was dead on arrival and a ‘total disaster’ and embarrassment for Trump. The cost to tax payers for the Prez’s diplomacy excisions continues to mount. I guess it was worth it for Don to be far away from the fallout of Michael Cohen’s testimony.
2
Kim and Trump just wanted a photo-op. This was a stunt for the cameras. These two are one in the same, and appearances are everything.
Trump is naive, and not the person to lead these talks. It's like trump meeting himself to pat himself on the back with praise.
2
completely and totally pre-planned. this was as staged as the local high school play. i don't believe one word of this account. it saved face for both of them, especially trump who comes off as uncompromising and good for the party line. this is disgraceful.
1
Do you or anyone actually think that North Korea is giving up nuclear weapons? Trump cannot be trusted to sign any deal and therefore the only security that Kim has is the nuclear arsenal .
I respect Kim since he can see what most Americans can not that Trump cannot be trusted about anything.
Kim will never give up his nuclear weapons. But why are nukes in his hands more dangerous than in the hands of Pakistan, a terrorism-sponsoring state? Nuclear proliferation can no longer be stopped but it can be managed. Limited engagement plus economic sanctions can undermine the North Korean regime sufficiently for it to fall of its own accord. What Reagan did to the mighty USSR can surely be done to that ridiculous communist kingdom. It already has a flourishing private-sector economy without which its population would simply starve. Give it a little more time and it’ll go the way of China and Vietnam, both of which are now normal capitalist countries, albeit with autocratic governments, that have other things on their minds besides starting a nuclear war. IPhones are more dangerous to ideological dictatorships than nukes.
1
Perhaps it's my military training during the Cold War but I view Kim's provocation differently. We need to show him how useless it is to launch missiles by shooting them down. Even if we do less than spectacularly if will give us the opportunity to hone our skills and anti-missile weapons.
Granted, the regime may decide to fire rounds in to South Korea but that's where we are. Kim is desperate: he must show progress in lifting sanctions to avoid civil unrest and keep the hardliners from killing him off. Firing rounds should be responded in kind: including targets key to the regime.
Neither side wants another shooting war. This is a test of wills. We win if we convince the regime that we will ante up if need be. Otherwise, we give in and Kim controls the south, and us, by nuclear threat. The Russians and Chinese back his play and world peace is in the hands of an unstable regime. This could lead to all out nuclear war.
He has proven time and time again that he's not a very good deal maker and in this case he was distracted by Cohen's testimony. What he does do very well is waste taxpayers money. Perhaps those few supporters don't care, but the majority of the country who have no use for him, do care how our tax money is spent. Kim ( and Putin ) are so much smarter than trump and are always prepared unlike trump who wings it, never thinking about the consequences.
1
Summits are not impromptu get togethers. These agreements are usually negotiated and solidified in advance of any public meetings between executives.
This meetup was nothing but a fumbled hail mary pass by an increasingly desperate Trump.
Even as a diversion it flopped. All eyes were on Michael Cohen's interrogation.
3
They could have done that over the phone. What a waste of time and money.
1
I've been a business lawyer in Silicon Valley for 35 years. That has taught me many things about negotiations: They are tough. Failure is common. They never stop. Relationships are key. Only "win-win"s succeed.
These same principles apply no matter what the negotiations are about. Donald Trump has a good feel for these principles, and the North Korean side seems to too. In that sense, the Hanoi Summit failed, but succeeded too.
Why? Because we can learn from failure. We know now more than we did before. We can continue to take a step, see the result, adjust our position, and repeat the process. As Donald Trump says, we "will see what happens".
1
We are yet to see if there is fallout from this blowup.
Will Trump be embarrassed and seek his normal distractions elsewhere or provide more twitter shouting?
Is Kim embarrassed and will he have to prove his might to his countrymen by more missle or nuclear testing.
I fear more negatives than positives are likely.
It’s all about preparation. You don’t fly 20 hours to a meeting unless there is an agreement to sign. Embarrassing!
1
Regime change is the only real solution to the world's North Korea problem. Give Kim a deadline to resign or be forcibly deposed, and watch how quickly he'll offer to make concessions. China and Russia will complain, of course, but I doubt they're willing to risk military interventions on behalf of a petty tyrant.
Hanoi was a certainly a failure for Trump. Not so much for Kim. Kim, once again, got an infusion of status which helps him in North Korea and the region. Also, his argument about the "smart leverage" of nuclear weapons gets some serious validation. Trump, on the other hand, played the hopeful supplicant left at the altar, a diminishing of POTUS stature globally. It was also another staggering indictment of the amateurish approach Trump and his staffers employed in preparation. To go so far, with such glaring obstacles and impediments to agreement unresolved, relying on "personal chemistry" is a "Hail Mary" of the worst kind. Trump apparently cannot be convinced there is any difference between negotiating for a condo development on New York's UWS and prying nuclear weapons from the hands of an erratic and despotic North Korean leader. I suppose the fact we are not all dead is something to be thankful for.
1
It's amusing when an op-ed columnist plays senior diplomat the day after the summit. There was no deal for the United States to be had in Hanoi. North Korea, South Korea and Japan were the big losers. The United States isn't the country living under sanctions and the handful of long range missiles NK has in its arsenal is of no major threat to our country. Trump walked away from the talks just as strong as when he walked in; Kim's the one who walked away empty handed heading back into the land of starving people.
Trump is to be congratulated for getting Kim to the table, twice. The remains of our military solders have been brought home as well as the release of political prisoners. Trump's efforts paved the way for Kim and Moon to meet and start a relationship. Trump has carried this ball further to secure peace in this region of the world than any other American President.
2
@Kurt Pickard What exactly did he accomplish besides a photo op?
@Kurt Pickard
Thank You for a voice of reason and sanity.
1
One should remember that while we have a Free Press that can talk about our president’s mistakes, the North Koreans do not. Kim Jong-un comes away from this with a glowing picture back home over his negotiating skills and his refusal to give up anything to an enemy, because his people actually do control their media. Trump comes home with his mental image of winning the Nobel Peace Prize vanishing in a cloud of smoke.
Let’s just hope that cloud of smoke is not radioactive fallout.
Check out the 2004 documentary “A State of Mind” to see how much control the Kims have had over their people.
1
Under what circumstances does Nicholas think it would be right for the U.S. to drop a nuclear bomb. Why does he think it is wrong for North Korea to have the bomb and right for the U.S. to to have it. It is deeply scary that serious humane people like Nicholas actually have mass murder always there as an option.
All these stable geniuses one crazier than the other.
1
There goes that Nobel Peace Prize . . .
Seriously, Trump couldn't even distract attention from the Cohen hearings with this. Has to go down as a massive failure all around.
2
A negative spin on these pages was a foregone conclusion. No one seriously thought Trump would get NK to give up their nukes in this meeting, so why is this now characterized as a "failure?" I suspect we will eventually accept NK as a nuclear power, but hopefully we can convince them to play nice in the sandbox.
Things at least seem to be in a better place now that NK is not testing nukes/missiles every couple months and threatening to strike us and our allies. Maybe things return to where they were in 2015-2017 time frame, but I doubt it. It does seem like we at least have open lines of communications with NK, and our leaders seem to have a good relationship. I'd say that's progress. Call that failure if you must, but Trump did not do what you said he would (make huge concessions for nothing)...I seem to recall Bill Clinton making huge concessions to these guys so they wouldn't develop a nuke. Rules were not adhered to, and now NK is a nuclear power with transcontinental missiles, so Trump has inherited a much more complicated situation.
1
Nicholas Kristof is right to place his trust on Moon Jae-In and the South Koreans. At the end of the day, Moon is playing the long game of changing North Korean political leadership--if not replacing Kim Jung-Un directly, then putting a different set of incentives in front of them so nuclear blackmail isn't the only game they can play. With the realistic and incremental step of inter-Korea trade and investment in exchange for modest inspections, North Koreans will see that becoming a toll collector in China-South Korea trade is MUCH better option than shooting off missiles across Hokkaido to get the world's attention. Kim Jung-Un must also sense that this is a unique opportunity for him: Moon and Trump are not going to be in their offices for much longer, and returning to normalcy will doom any possibilities for North Korea to become the next Vietnam or China or whatever future away from familiar misery and belligerence. It took someone as unconventional as Trump for Kim Jung-Un to negotiate with an American president--it things fall apart, the next American Kim will negotiate with will be Dennis Rodman. Unconventional to be sure but that's about it.
Kristof knows that Trump lies on every turn, yet he is taking Trump's word for it on this matter.
North Korea did not demand to lift the sanctions in entirety. They were willing to go with dismantling of Yongbyon facility in exchange just for restarting the economic cooperation between the North and South. Trump, on the other hand, demanded more for the same. Kim then wanted symbolic/partial lifting of international sanctions in return and Trump stuck to the North and South cooperation only.
They will have to take smaller steps if they were to succeed, as Pompeo realized months ago. They'll meet again eventually, after Moon' visit to both perhaps, and possibly settle for the additional inclusion of the denuclearization list in return for China-North Korea economic cooperation, if Trump insists on bigger deal.
At least Kim didn’t win by quite as much this time.
He strengthened his position as a peer of the U.S. President, which must have gained him enormous face back in Pyongyang.
However, Trump was in no position to offer Kim a credible guarantee of North Korea’s security, and any “deal” for Kim would have been a bad one. Kim might have gained more by prolonging the negotiations, but this would have raised the cost of thwarting them later. Kim had to exit at some point, and chose this moment to (apparently) do so.
In a strange way, the United States also benefits from this outcome. It will not be party to a deal that Trump and others would have unquestionably violated, and its downward path in the esteem of the world is now slightly less steep.
Keep in mind that Pres. Trump is the first President to get NK to even come to the table, so that alone was a success. There's a good chance that Kim will work with future Presidents to create a better world.
@Penthalix NK came to the table because NK has always wanted to be at the same table as the President of the United States. Trump gave Kim what he wanted - twice - and got bipkis in return.
2
Complicated and sensitive negotiations and deal-making take preparation. It doesn't seem 45 has the patience or attention to do so.
6
When you give one of the most complicated, serious, diplomatic jobs to someone who doesn’t want to read, delve into details that’s what you get. They made him travel all that way to show their upper hand. He is no negotiator. His tweets are the most work he does.
1
I suppose one could say, as the subtitle of this article states, that trump was right to walk rather than accept a bad deal.
But let's not lose sight of the fact that the entire exercise was an ill-conceived charade in the first place.
trump and his team of incompetents blundered badly in setting up such a photo-op without it being preceded by a lot of serious work by teams of negotiators for both sides.
For without the hard work there was no genuine prospect for a concrete agreement. The absolute best outcome one could have reasonably hoped for was the same outcome as the last charade: smiley handshakes, (retch) expressions of love, and of course trump bragging about how much safer the world is now, followed by a "Where is my Nobel Piece Prize already?" (I assume trump would misspell "peace".)
6
The purpose for this and the prior meeting had nothing to do with making the world safer. The goal was always to feed Trump's massive, yet remarkably fragile, ego. A quality outcome requires a quality goal.
"Mirror, mirror on the wall ..."
8
Trump backed his way into corner on North Korea. He gave away so much on his first tour, everyone was expecting him to give away the bank on the second. If you start from a marketing perspective, which Trump always does, any deal is perceived as weak. Trump had to walk away.
I'm sure Trump's advisers told him walking away would look strong. However, walking away also looks weak. Trump didn't have a choice in the matter. Kim was dictating the terms of the conversation. Trump was not in control. That's why you don't send a weak president to go negotiate with North Korea. He's always bluffing.
3
I think the picture at the top of the article says it all. What we see is a tired, defeated old man. My question is that if Trump did not have the patience to do the hard diplomatic work necessary after the first meeting, what would lead us to believe that he will somehow find it after the second one?
It will be interesting to see how he spins this stalemate.
4
Mr. Kristof: "At this meeting, Kim apparently sought a full end to sanctions on North Korea in exchange for closing only some nuclear sites. That was not a good deal, and Trump was right to walk rather than accept it."
Mr. Kristof is a wonderful journalist and I do not know when I last disagreed with anything he said but, with this column, I have a difference of opinion.
Sanctions do not work! Sanctions do not affect state leadership, but they have hideous effects on the poor - misery, starvation, death. Sanctions are almost always immoral.
American leadership has to look at the long trail of American sanctions of other countries over time - almost none of them have done good, but all of the sanctions do grave harm to the poor.
I wish Mr. Kristof would read about the history of American sanctions and write a column about their total lack of efficacy.
One would do well to read Stephen Pinker's tome, "Better Angels of Our Nature."
1
Portrait of a break up. This picture is worth a thousand tweets!
8
That was kind of predictable, wasn’t it. Trump was trying to suger coat the conflict last year to improve his personal image as a deal maker but ultimately the bill became due.
4
This may be the first thing I've seen him do that looked the slightest bit presidential. This is a reminder to all of us not to run for president if you don't have the faintest idea what a president does.
9
The Summit collapsed because Trump could not watch the Cohen hearing, consult with legal counsel, and be bothered with Kim's translators all at the same time. And what about the Chinese trade deal, a make or break moment for the Dow, and the barometer Trump uses to measure the success of his myopic economic policy? To much, Too much for any one mortal to deal with at once. He will need a month of golf to recover, but will he get that time to recover? He needs a time out.
10
I am pleased that he chose to walk rather than make a bad deal. Now he will come back and fight the House. It will be War, as is necessary for the Republic.
1
I'm inclined to think it was an accomplishment to get to this point of bilateral discussions about making peace. Not all opportunities pay off. Sounds like this is one of them, so far. Judgemental hindsight is rarely helpful. Let's talk real economic reform or reforming the democratic party rules for the primaries (which will lead to real economic reform), rather than incessently attack Donald Trump. Do we really want to villify in order to focus and galvanize ourselves (and sell alot of media products, in the process)?
1
He is attacked with good reason, haven’t you been paying attention?!
@Mari
Maybe so. But is this the time and place to be attacking Donald Trump? It may feel so right, but I think it is wrong-headed. Most of these good reasons concern character issues and events prior to his presidency and candidacy... none of which are surprises to the voters - and that's just legitimate democracy in action, sometimes. Democrats should focus on their own major flaws to insure that the party doesn't impose another establishment player on us. So we can see major reforms to our economic system that the whole country has been wanting since Obama. And these would prevail if it weren't for corrupt party and media practices, IMO.
If the headlines and articles on this summit are true then I believe that the US position is unreasonable. Imposing sanctions is a form of an attack on a country and asking a nation to completely disarm before lifting sanctions is essentially holding a gum to that country's head and heart. It is not a negotiating position. What North Korea's intentions are is unclear but lifting sanctions that could be reimposed in exchange for the dismantling of its largest nuclear facility is a start though my belief that a peace treaty ending the Korean War would be a better first step. Further, denuclearization must include both the US and South Korea dismantling and/or removing its nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula. The United States, the mightiest nation the world has ever seen, can have its way militarily and economically with North Korea at any time of its choosing. For me, there was little risk in lifting the sanctions in exchange for the North Korean proposal to dismantle its site. Finally, the North Koreans cannot be certain how long Donald Trump will be President and whether his successor(s) will continue the policy of engagement. This small "unimportant" country has shown itself for over 65 years and three leaders to be a clever and skilled player on the international stage avoiding a hot war with the US and surviving while building its nuclear deterrent. It is they who are threatened and not the US.
2
Thanks.
Now, explain the gulags, mass starvation, tendency to execute people with antiaircraft cannon, and torpedoes. Be good if you could do the exports of arms to terrorists and nuclear prolif, too.
1
"A year later the Russians returned with better terms and a deal was made "
Yup. Next year is the election, a better time to get a deal, even if a bad one.
That was the plan all along.
4
Mr. Kristof seems to assume that North South Korean relations will change the North for the better, but considering Kim Jung Un's designs for the take over of the South under his rule, the opposite may be true. We need to constantly remind Sough Korea of its danger as it goes forward with its normalization attempts with the North, a tiger intent on making South Korea its next meal.
1
Don’t worry, there will still be a high profile summit with an agreement.
It will occur in October, 2020…in the crucial last month of the election season.
4
@John
And will that be before or after Trump builds his wall?
During the lead-up to the summit, much of the media "reported" unsupported left-wing speculation that Trump would take a bad deal just to have a deal as if this paranoid hand-wringing was actually real news. Now real facts--Trump has walked away from a bad deal--have contradicted that fact-free narrative, but left-wingers like Mr. Kristof just cannot let go of it. Nothing bad has happened in Trump's negotiations with Kim. And some very limited good has come of it. Most importantly, North Korea and the United States are still negotiating, because contrary to what the Times is reporting, talks have not collapsed. Also, North Korea has halted testing for now. Mr. Kristof's fallback to what "normal" administrations would do is the most pitiful of all his attempts to maintain an anti-Trump narrative. It was the repeated failures of "normal" administration, including Clinton, Bush II, and Obama, that have brought us to an unacceptable and very dangerous situation on the Korean Peninula. Obama handed off a disaster to Trump, and now Mr. Kristoff suggests we look to the usual suspects from previous administrations, whose fingerprints are all this failure, for guidance.
3
Speculation is just that, speculation. Korea has been a mess since we lost the war in the 1950s. 2 summits after decades of isolation might be a good thing but let’s not pretend anything has really changed.
1
Apparently South Korea is much more concerned about environmental pollution than the nuclear threat from the North. That threat ranks down the list with flooding. They feel most "dust" is blowing in from China with NK's reliance on low grade coal as the secondary source.
Something to think about as we here in the US continue to outsource our pollution & think we're fighting climate change.
The failure of the Trump-Kim talks leaves us no worse off than they've been with any previous president, the volatility of this administration notwithstanding.
1
I'd like to know what he did offer. Did he offer complete removal of 'sanctions' in exchange for complete stopping of a nuclear program that could be used for weapons?
What were the details?
We are in the dark, looking at Trump in the photos I assume he was just tired and grouchy and wanted to get back to his own bed. There is no apparent effective negotiation here and Bolton as anyone who studies the matter knows, is an old 'hawk' and not to be trusted to keep the world safe. Trump needs to study Michael Cohen, and figure out how to protect his family, back in the good old U.S.A.
This comment touches on one of the most worrying things possible - Trump and his administration are not transparent. Who knows what was said and how it was presented. We are in the dark. No wonder we are always seeing bogeymen. And at the same time Mnuchin is swanning around in France like the US is his personal company. Gads!
Trump was given the little chair treatment. Tell me why Kim looks taller than Trump in that picture. Tell me why the table top is slanted downwards toward our illustrious president? It's a very carefully constructed tableau of a very common negotiating tactic. Make your opponent look and feel small.
Trump's team had nothing going in, and of course came home with nothing but talking points. Some summit. Some president.
5
The slanted appearance is due to the camera angle and perspective. Check the angle of the floor and all lines parallel to it. Maybe the photographer had to tilt his camera to get the shot; Kim has plenty of ways to belittle or undermine Trump (his recent “deal” is one) but please don’t add invented conspiracies to an already tense situation.
Thank you for your well stated thoughts on the "Hanoi Summit." If Trump were as astute as he claims, he might have noted the expressions on Kim's face as Trump made his usual grovelling remarks. Trevor Noah showed both men as Trump rattled on. I hope many people will take a look at this. Even better without the sound.
Do hope we can maintain peace and elect a Democrat come 2020 in order to have some real diplomacy and resolve issues.
2
Trump's summit with Kim, indeed his entire relationship with the leader of the Hermit Kingdom, demonstrates the president's propensity to lead with his ego and emotions, rather than with the considered, informed judgment that such circumstances demand.
He leaves Viet Nam with a failure on his hands after virtually promising unequivocal and meaningful progress. He prefers, of course, to characterize it as negotiating toughness on his part by walking away from a deal which would have been anything but a rousing success.
Trump's rosy promises demonstrate his consistent disconnect from reality, and his yearning for noisy spectacle over substance. For all we know, he was fully aware, in advance, that no agreement would be reached, but was more interested in the appearance that a meeting with Kim would seemingly mean to his image as a world leader.
Trump isn't the first president to reach for international glory when domestic decks are stacked against him. Unlike Richard Nixon, however, Trump is not a student of international relations, and seemed more interested in simply appearing with his
partner-in-romance unSeoul Brother than anything else.
Perhaps next time, Trump should send Dennis Rodman, who seems more capable of getting what he wants from Kim than does the president, and walks away with nothing but net.
2
I’ll say one thing for Trump - he makes Nixon look good.
Trump’s thinking, or lack thereof (i.e., relying on personal relationships rather than groundwork laid by the State Department), could get many of us killed. What if, for example, Trump was president during the Cuban missile crisis? We not only need to replace Trump, soon, we also need a new conservative party to replace the ideologues who want to protect themselves and their wealth. If we do not pursue a new avenue, we risk riots and political instability.
2
Be careful of what you wish for. Pence is actually a much worse alternative. All that that leaves us is revolution in the streets; however, it is possible to make a peaceful, velvet revolution that gains the recognition of the rest of the sane world. That will also require a courageous Democratic House to resist Trump's initiatives, just as McConnell made wholesale rejections of Obama's initiatives. Then, let the pieces fall where they may fall and wait to see Democrats prevail in 2020.
Libya's Qaddafi gave up his nuclear program. During the Obama-Clinton era, Qaddafi had a rebellion, which he sought to put down, with the usual Arab world rhetoric of how he was going to slaughter them all.
The United States, apparently taking this language at face value, imposed a no fly zone to protect the rebels, and otherwise assisted in the toppling of the Qaddafi regime. Had Qaddafi had nuclear deterrence, I doubt we would have taken such interventionist measures.
As it turns out, we had never vetted these rebels before giving them our support. It turns out that, at the least, they were terrorist friendly, the country dissolved into chaos, with our Ambassador being killed in the process. ISIS established a base of operations in Libya.
Certainly Kim Jong Un is aware of this history, and has learned its lesson: namely, give up your nuclear deterrence, and you are at the military mercy of the larger powers.
Given the Libya experience, Kim would have to be a fool to totally give up all nuclear capability. Administrations change in Washington, and new ones will not always honor the commitments of its predecessors.
And therefore, it is unrealistic for the USA to make demands for total de-nuclearization. We have proven ourselves to be untrustworthy over the long term.
5
The same thing happened with Ukraine. They gave up their nukes and any deterrence they afforded and now Russia can just roll right over them.
While my grave concerns remain that President Trump may give away broad concessions in his desperate search for a Nobel Peace Prize, this is an encouraging development. I'm surprised Kim and his Psy-Ops team didn't handle this more shrewdly.
Let's hope nothing too drastic gets agreed to until we can put a woman or man in the White House who understands the value of expert advice, rather than relying on one's "gut."
195
The only progress that could have been expected would have been an agreement to exchange diplomatic legations to begin more serious negotiations.
11
@Mister Sensitive
This could have been handled with a phone call.
Just a massive publicity stunt to divert attention from Trump's monumental (and growing) legal problems.
27
@Mister Sensitive In the 20s' two friends from opposing parties travelled around Kentucky stumping for governor, often sleeping in the same bed. Then they would get up on the flatbed wagon at the county fairs and berate one another's position on the dog tax, the main issue of the day. One fellow drank a little too much the night before and as he sat and awaited his turn got sick to his stomach. He arose and walked to the front of the wagon close to the podium and vomited and returned to his seat. His friend looked at the man, shook his head and continued. When it came his turn the man apologized to the audience by saying you can see how violently opposed I am to everything my opponent believes.
5
An oft overlooked factor is whether NK has the technical capability to run computer tests of their weapons. If they have reached the point at which they no longer need live weapons testing, our leverage is different, if not less.
Kim will never denuclearize. The hope that he would was a dangerous misconception. Eliminating testing is as far as he will go.
76
@RjW, They are one of the world's leading cybercrime centers. I would hazard a guess that simulations are now well within their technical abilities.
Kim has achieved much of what he wanted (world recognition as a nuclear power) and will gradually erode the sanctions as Asia continues to break from the US in favor of China.
The future for the US as a world leader is zero as long as the president sees the world as transactional, a place defined entirely by 'winning' and fails to recognize the value of friendships, alliances and united purpose.
29
@RjW Kim is not a fool. And, he would have to be to denuclearize. It would put him in the same position as the late Kaddafi.
1
I agree that “walking away” was the right response but this could have been done with proper preparation by real negotiators.
Trump ran half-way around the world with visions of a Noble Peace Prize dancing in his head. Kim knew that and obviously thought he could play the guy because of it.
Bottom line, this summit was a failure, produced nothing of value. Still, talking is better than fighting and there seems to be an easier time between North and South Korea. And the best that can be said is that Trump didn’t “give away the store” although the love he still feels for this vicious dictator is icky.
132
@Maxie, North and South Korea, with the assistance of China and other Asian partners will simply begin ignoring the US. There is no chance the American people will allow a military attack against a country which is not threatening and not capable of harming this continent. Trump has been out-played; N Korea will turn more and more to S Korea and China for sanction-busting and continued development.
18
@SWLibrarian Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan were not capable of harming this continent, but you're right, countries are slipping away from ol' tiny hands into our adversaries' faster each day.
7
What failure? It was a big success from the point of view of the Kim and Trump. They got their photo-op. Each got to say that a "world leader" loves and respects him. That is what this was all about. Any kind of deal was besides the point.
160
@gratis
And I'm supposed to care what Trump and Kim think of each other? Why?
2
Trump wanted that deal for Trump. That's why he was kissing up to Kim so intensely. This was worse than his kowtowing to Putin. If Trump could have gotten a deal, he would have been able to come home and claim that he can't be impeached. He's a hero! He just brought peace to the world.
Didn't happen. The great deal maker who isn't realizes he can't intimidate brutal dictators like he tries to intimidate people over here. So he kisses up to them.
This summit was political theater, pure and simple. Trump was seeking glory while Michael Cohen was tearing him apart. Cohen's theater was sold out. No one came to Trump's show. Cohen got the better ratings, the top ratings.
Trump's last hurrah will be a trade deal with China. That won't happen either. China wants him gone. They can hold out another two years. They will play Trump just like Kim and Putin have done.
It's all caving in now. The Trump train has been derailed. Unfortunately, 35% of the nation will never get off of it and will ride it down into the ditch.
598
@Bruce Rozenblit
Yes, but of more concern than the 35% is McConnell and the entire Republican party. They will not go willingly into the ditch and will probably destroy things as they go, as in the observation that when faced with the choice between democracy and power, they will choose power.
123
@Bruce Rozenblit
Since Donald Trump is the one and only President of the United States that Americans have there is no way to escape the consequences of the 35% support that he has in the polls. Trump won 58% of white voters in 2016. And Trump has even more support among Republicans.
Coupled with a Republican majority in the Senate and on the Supreme Court of the United States along with the malign smiling and smirking approval of Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin Americans are aboard the Titanic after it hit that iceberg.
8
@LS After watching the Rep's almost vulgar display of self-righteous anger yesterday at the Cohen hearing, I would say they have one leg in the ditch and if they lose their balance further they will simply fall in. Woe is us.
18
There were clearly no constructive reasons for Trump to travel across the world to grace the dictatorship of North Korea again with the prestige of meeting with a President of the US. The sides had not reached preliminary agreement on the most basic issues between them in preliminary negotiations.
Yet the vaunted meeting went ahead anyway, to the gain of Kim and the net loss to the US. Why do this?
Of course, it's a photo-op, a chance to try, once again, to one-up Obama and Clinton, who Trump is fixated upon, and most importantly, divert attention from the growing scandals and Congressional investigations back home.
Trump in the end accomplished nothing other than the photo-op, and to give his base something more to cling to as his ship slowly sinks under its own corruption.
307
@MassBear
If the photo accompanying this piece is any indication, even the photo op was a bust.
35
The U.S. has no right to expect anything better from Trump, whose sole qualifications before the election were “reality television personality” and self-employed huckster. The best thing to do now is to continue to remind our citizenry of his numerous scandals and failures, and hope that his time is limited to one term. Articles like this help put complex problems into simple terms that are worth sharing.
2
Apparently Trump's deal making prowess was established from the extensive history of hard bargaining between Trump and his generous Dad. But it doesn't seem to carry over to other situations. Oh well.
2
This was inevitable from the beginning. Trump’s pompous rhetoric about his “brilliant” deal-making skills has shown its true colors. How nice it would have been to have had a real negotiator at our side of the table instead of an ignorant bully who is narcissistic enough to think that he has “skills and charm” that can compensate for his ignorance and lack of proper preparation.
You just can’t wing these things; they require vast preparation. The fake “handshakes” are for the cameras. Trump thinks they’re real because in his world it’s all about perceived image and not substance.
Being a cheap, failed, criminal bully in NYC is not preparatory experience for international negotiations. As we can all now see, neither was it successful in NYC. Consider all the other existentially important destructive things the Dotard has already done - as payback comes due, he will fail there too, even with the irrational support of his Republican sycophants.
We are way overdue to put a human grownup in the WH; someone with real abilities, character, honesty and integrity. No more Trump Mafia and a Cabinet full of felons and traitors!
162
@RealTRUTH
Yes. Prior preparation positively prevents
poor performance.
3
@RealTRUTH, well said. Your's was the best comment I've read all morning.
Trump - "I take Kim Jong Un at his word about Otto Warbinger." This sentence should have been included in this editorial piece. Trump sure loves dictators.
6
So much for the great dealmaker. What a farce!
3
Trump fails..... again..... maybe he was talking about the Democrats winning when he said we'd be tired of so much winning. Let's get on with the the Mueller report, Congressional hearings, criminal proceedings, and finally end this train where it belongs, at Leavenworth. He's a second rate con at best.
2
Trump doesn't have the brain power to decipher what Kim wanted. Good thing he had Pompeo there>
2
@robert west
Good one!
How could a man with a notoriously short attention span concentrate on the business at hand with his ship sinking at home from the Cohen testimony. It has often been said that he never expected to be president, that he doesn't behave with the dignity of a president, and he doesn't have tha acumen of a president.
In VietNam, he behaved like a wimp, and had he been there when the USA was invading the country, he would have been the first to be bawling like a baby calling for mama at the first round of 'incoming.' Loser.
3
This op-ed suggests “relaxation of sanctions on inter-Korean projects, such as . . . tourism . . . in North Korea in exchange for a moratorium on nuclear testing. That would enable Trump to build his hotel in North Korea.
Cheer up, Mr. President. Look on the bright side. You just freed up time for Shinzo Abe. He won't need to continue working on your requested nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Never count your chickens before they're hatched.
1
Are we tired of all this winning yet?
1
Let's face it folks Trump's strongest negotiating skill is the walk away. Taking his ball and going home. Looks like the grift isn't working on Kim. Imagine that!
4
It has been reported elsewhere that Pompeo had a tighter rein on Trump this time. Pompeo severely limited the alone time between Trump and Kim so the NK leader did not have time to woo Trump into a 'deal' worth a Nobel.
President Moon of SK is the go to man. He is the one working overtime behind the scenes and we should let him continue. Episode 2 of the Summit was not ratings gold. Sorry Donald. Time to stay home and let the adults do the real work.
So no Nobel for Trump? Shucks.
It's a terrible thing to have such a low opinion of a sitting POTUS that I actually find myself relieved at this conclusion. But considering Trump's habitual lack of preparation and intellectual, um, deficits, this is the best of all the outcomes I imagined. I was dreading a repeat of his last summit, in which he made stupid, hasty concessions (that he didn't comprehend) and returned home boasting of a victory that existed only in his fantasy.
Between Michael Cohen's testimony and the meeting w/Kim, yesterday wasn't Trump's day. Is there an astrologist in the house?
4
Trump was duped
Kim flattered him and
Achieved his real objectives
Delay in any attempt to reverse North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and
An enhanced fig leaf for China, Russia and other countries who are ignoring sanctions. Kim’s main audience is the Chinese leader.
With help from Bolton (who bears responsibility for NK’s success in acquiring nukes), Trump is solidifying NK’s nuclear capabilities just as he is kickstarting Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
This incompetence is extremely dangerous. The US is being played, our allies are being weakened and undermined (by Trump and by Russian and Chinese interference).
The corrupt dictatorships in Russia and China thrive on chaos.
I think Trump and his negotiators were blind-sided by the Cohen testimony here in the US. All the air got knocked out of this summit. It was far away and the Cohen testimony was here and center stage. And it was not going to be easy. So, Trump packed up Air Force One and headed back here to defend himself and get the spotlight back. It was a waste of time and energy but Trump took the time to denigrate some in our press for doing their jobs and to tell the world that Kim didn't mean for Otto Warmbier to be tortured to death and sent home brain-damaged and dying. He believed Kim just as he believed Putin in Helsinki last year. There is indeed trouble ahead.
2
Mr.Kristof is correct– Kim will not give up any nukes, why would he? They are his only leverage.
The whole process is simply a scam to get us to drop sanctions and down the road give them the money they desperately need.
If it were up to me, I'd simply ignore him. His saber-rattling tests may be unsettling, but he is never going to launch anything that would lead to the destruction of his power and wealth. It's good to be king, er, I mean, dictator.
I appears that Mr. Kristof finds it more self-satisfying to Bash Trump than it is to give an objective analysis of what's going on here.
So obsessed with a very narrow world-view in Mr. Kristof.
We dont have to like the man,,,,but the man(Trump) is our President....and as such, Donald Trump has been very courageous and forthright in confronting a MAJOR problem in the world....that all the past presidents since Reagan have cowardly avoided.
As for quivering in fear at what Trump's next "blunder" might be......lets consider that it is actually Kim Jong Il who might "blunder".....not Trump.
We tap dance around our hippie fantasy that makes us believe that "China wants to be just like the USA".....and consider the reality.........North Korea is China's steadfast ally and serves China as their Advance Guard.......this should be obvious ever since 1Million Chinese soldiers swarmed across the Yalu River 1950 and darn near obliterated the entire US Army.
Kim Jong Il has absolutely no motivation to stop missile testing and nuclear testing.....as long as CHINA encourages North Korea to do that testing....it is in CHINA's interest....not North Korea's.
I think Trump, for one, grasps this reality.....negotiations are never complete in one ceremonial sit-down.....Mr. Kristof knows this.....and he's just not being honest with his readership........
2
@Wherever Hug
"I think Trump, for one, grasps the reality"
I think you, for one, believe Trump grasps anything resembling reality.
In light of the break in talks in Hanoi, the usual suspects herein will mock Trump’s negotiating skills, of course, not knowing that negotiating denuclearization in Korea will be a lengthy process.
1
Surely Kim knew he was dealing with a flawed president and its only a matter of time and he will be replaced. Why would he seriously negotiate anything with this man?
2
Kim Jong-un is an irrelevant player on the world stage without his nuclear weapons. For this reason he will never give them up.
Trump is clearly not savvy enough to get this so he puts on a show. Some of the comments he made during the meeting were spoken at the level of a marginal middle school student and demonstrated both his ignorance and naivete.
4
"Fantastic success", the Hanoi Summit? Nope. Utter flop. Trump's personal relationship with Kim Jong-un ("we're in love!") didn't mean diddly. Nick Kristof, the DPRK leader euchred our "dotard" in Singapore last year and again yesterday in Hanoi. Glad that Trump walked away and took his marbles home to face the terrible fallout from his personal lawyer's revelations to the Congressional Oversight and Reform Committee yesterday. North Vietnam is continuing to outfox the U.S. by increasing their nuclear capabilities. Trump "set the table", but there was no deal, no signing ceremony and the decorated luncheon table at the Metropole Hotel for Kim and Trump's celebration was hauntingly empty after Trump left.
Trump did the thing that Obama should have done with Iran. Trump wouldn't make a bad deal just to enhance his legacy so he didn't. But he has at least gotten N. Korea to the table and Kim to see that there are stark choices for him and N. Korea. The sanctions will eventually strangle N.Korea and may lead to an uprising. It took us 40 years to end the cold war. We really haven't tried to normalize relations with N.Korea since the end of the Korean war so this is a first step.
2
"In Vietnam, Trump might also have shown Kim what freedom of the press looks like. "
Mr. Kristof indulges in the same sort of false hopes with Trump that Mr. Trump indulges in with Kim.
2
Trump’s incompetence on the world stage came to bite him again, trusting his “gut instincts” instead of doing the preparation that it takes for a successful outcome. He telegraphed what he hoped for as a a result and left Kim Jong Un to make demands that even Trump couldn’t meet.
His love affair with a dictator continues from a distance and while his dreams of a Nobel have been dashed, walking away was probably the best outcome. Besides, in light of yesterday’s testimony by Michael Cohen, Trump has more to worry about at home.
1
. NKorea as “otherwise unimportant”? Not quite; NKorea has estimated $5T in untapped resources. China and Russia routinely ignore the sanctions, not to mention Pakistan, Iran, Singapore, etc. Only an embargo and starving another 1M would be effective, so sanctions are ultimately doomed absent that and the destruction of the 6 western bridges to China, the Russian rail line, and a no fly zone.
. NKorea have been entirely consistent. They borrowed their Nuc policy from China. Its policy since the 1970s has been to get nuc capacity; then de-nuc only multi-laterally. When Russia, China and USA de-nuc and S Korea is no longer a danger, it will think about it. That is why Bush II should not have walked away from the Agreed Framework when they had no nuc capacity (trade w/China has allowed them to now have 60 nucs that can reach NYC). As a result of the Bush Doctrine, the military science and foreign policy theory for an evolved nuc state is international parity. Game over. DJT will not be mentioned in the history books on this issue.
What concessions would the US be willing to make? Do we really believe that NK is a military threat to the US? Do they really believe that stopping one military exercise in SK is enough for Kim to give up his nuclear deterrent while the US has all options on the table, including nuclear weapons and sanctions?
Military power and economic power, sanctions, is US diplomacy. Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo, what a team.
What has Korea done to the US to justify sanctions?
Thanks for at least a left-handed complement of the President, Mr. Kristof. I agree it was a bad deal and not one the President should have accepted.
Let's give President Trump even a bit more credit: he did the right thing in a situation where - I feel certain - Mr. Kim's advisers told him a domestically beleaguered Trump would grasp at any straw to divert attention from the blood sport of Mr. Cohen's testimony.
Trump knew better and walked away. Give the man credit where credit is due.
3
@Hugo Furst
I'll go even further. While maybe not intentional, trumps efforts have mainstreamed NK as a nuclear power. We are no longer talking about regime change or war to prevent this new status. Preventing NK from becoming a nuclear power would have required China to play the lead roll, which they refused. So we now have to live with the current status, just as we have been living with Pakistan, India and Israel as nuclear powers in volatile situations. Now South Korea needs to start a long, slow process of engagement to ensure no hostilities, and just maybe a slight improvement in the lives of the long suffering NK citizenry.
Totally reflects the farcical nature of this whole game. No advanced preparation, “let’s see what happens” vibe and twitter diplomacy is nothing but fake leadership. Ten minutes of advance talks would have discovered that the whole thing was pointless.
8
Point being that the "deal-breaking" disagreement was fundamental; basic. There was no need to have this meeting. Diplomats should have ascertained long beforehand that this crucial point of difference was, for the moment, non-negotiable on both sides. So why didn't they? Oh yeah, forgot; Trump and Co. fired the State Department.
Plus, this way Kim gets to ride on a cool private train, and Trump gets to try to deflect attention from the investigation(s).
7
I was so ready to tell my children how lucky we are that we aren't all speaking North Korean now thanks to this tremendous, incredible president, the likes of whom we've never seen before.
But I guess that great news of salvation will have to wait for the next summit.
Or the next one.
3
Just another example that Trump is anything but the self proclaimed master deal maker. On the contrary. Negotiations with an adversary like Kim isn’t anything like doing one of his real estate deals. Since it’s all about him all the time he couldn’t let his team negotiate an agreement in advance and then proclaim success at the end of the meeting. This would have meant having to give credit to his diplomats instead of praise to himself.
3
I was surprised -- this was an indication that Trump actually does have some regard for substance, rather than just appearances. I can't recall seeing this before. It seems so out of character -- but in a good way! Despite my great antipathy towards the man, I feel it would be churlish not acknowledge this.
Of course the non-deal means that things are not materially better than they were before, but at least they are not worse. Glass half full!
4
@Abraham
While there is no deal there is a defacto trade off - we don't carry out major military exercises with South Korea in exchange for North Korea not testing nuclear bombs and long range missiles.
It may not last but this temporary lull in testing is a substantive positive move in the right direction.
1
This is what happens when someone is unprepared and incapable. The ongoing nightmare of seat-of-your-pants diplomacy continues.
3
Where was Bolton in all this? Trump is not averse to accepting advice from ersatz tough guys.
26
...this has been going on since 1948 Mr. Kristol, since Kim Jong-un's grandfather took control of N. Korea.
It's been a family affair ever since.....you think Mr. Trump is bad.......
13 Presidents have come and gone since Kim-Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un have been in control of the Communist country.....
...for N. Korea, whose economy and military program depends on Chinese support, it's a game they've been playing for decades with the West....
N. Korea's regime wasn't moved by economic or sanction relief; it's nuclear program is its most coveted item - it will never relinquish its nuclear weapons....never.
...we shouldn't care what happens on the Peninsula - the Chinese will keep a tight leash on Mr. Jong-un - they don't want any US involvement in the region...neither does Russia.
Mr. Trump was showboating - that's what he does - he was making nice to a monster - remember this newspaper reported Jong-un killed his uncle in 2013 and his half-brother in 2017.
but, there are a lot of monsters in the world, so being nice may not be such a bad idea - better than calling him Rocket Man.
The dance will continue....as it plays into Jong-un's goal of placing himself on the world stage with the West's strongest leader - he will tell his countrymen whatever he wants to - and will glorify his standing even more.
It's irrelevant what we do with N. Korea - another 13 Presidents will come and go....and Jong-un (and family) will still be there.
3
He was unprepared to go in the first place. You do not wing nuclear disarmament talks, you prepare for them painstakingly over a protracted period, and everyone agrees to the protocols in place before the principles meet to sighn the documents. You can find even more details in that yellow and black book called Diplomacy for Dummies.
1
Trump was never interested in North Korea.
All he wanted was photo ops that might get him some sort of acclaim.
How much money did U.S. taxpayers cough up for this waste of time trip?
5
In truth, Trump should never have met with Kim the first time. North Korea had not done anything to earn the honor of meeting with an American president, even one as moronic as Trump.
The first summit was a pure propaganda victory for Kim. Trump rather embarrasingly sought to portray a nothing meeting as the start of a robust bromance.
No one should have expected a man as demented, ignorant and dismissive of expert counsel could reach a meaningful agreement with North Korea.
Kim will never denuclearize. Sure, he may agree to, but he won't comply.
Trump went on a fool's errand and, in so doing, made America seem foolish and weak.
3
For the sake of Trump and Kim and world peace, I plead the Noble Prize organization to lower the standards and award the prize to these two best statesmen of our time.
I mean, seriously.
1
The meeting, just ended, between Trump and Kim hasn’t had real credibility from before it was scheduled. For one thing, Trump is not a diplomat, and he either does not understand or is unwilling to suffer the tedious work of diplomacy. He’s a con artist that is now known very well ... in fact, throughout the entire world. And worse and equally well known, a bully in great need of flattery. His view of power is obsolete. And all of this makes him, as president, an extraordinary danger to the well-being of this country in particular.
I personally am truly sick and tired of the word “deal.” And when Trump uses this word, which do often does, with the all superlatives in redundant expression of “success,” it’s a sure sign of some zero-sum contest where the “other side” has been short-changed ... filled with resentment for another day to “get even.” And Trump thinks he’s going to out-fox the ruthless Kim! Right.
1
@wak
On the eve of his departure for his second summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, President Trump said: “I don’t want to rush anybody. I just don’t want testing. As long as there is no testing, we’re happy.”
If he attempted to add additional conditions to this statement, such as "denuclearization" Kim would be quite justified in either walking out or adding a ton of other conditions to his side of the bargain.
Basically, it just seems like another foolish and counter-productive lie on Trump's part.
Why is North Korea , it's economy and it's people suffering under harsh sanctions imposed upon it ...for what?
Last time I looked, possessing Nuclear Weapons is NOT illegal and North Korea has the right to own them as much as any other Country that possesses them ....all of whom have also refused to denuclearize...citing national defence.
Should Pakistan have Nuclear weapons? Israel?
Anyone?
If all the non nuclear countries in the World decided to boycott or impose sanctions on any or all of the nuclear nations , would that be a valid and legitimate action?
What do you think America would do if it was put under sanctions by the other 190 countries that do not have Nuclear weapons and don't think America should have them (or Russia , China...)
Iran doesn't even have Nuclear Weapons and is STILL abiding by the terms of the agreement made in 2015 despite America attacking the Country and threatening its security by imposing sanctions that are destroying its economy and hurting its 90 million citizens ....why?
Because America didn't think the agreement it signed with the other major powers was good enough as it only stopped Iran from having Nuclear weapons for 10 years instead of what...forever?
Why would Kim get rid oi his Nuclear Weapons when he can see that Iran did everything that was agreed to be done and despite still not having or attempting to get Nuclear weapons...is still under crippling sanctions because America hates the leadership so much, anyway.
6
@Loomy Well said, and neither Iran nor Korea poses a military threat to the US, just as was true with Libya, Iraq, and many other nations the US destroyed out of kindness, as they like to claim. It always is for the benefit of the people they kill. Out of kindness, they will push a possibly bloody regime change on Venezuela.
No surprises here. There was far too excessive infatuation expressed by Trump with no reason other than his glimmer of hope of getting a Nobel Prize. Now, someone has to nominate him for the Nubble Prize. I wonder whose buttons the White House will push to write a nominating letter this time!
If Trump wants to survive his presidency now, he has to start pulling rabbits out of hats. That means he needs to coax Democrats to side with him - by starting to work on bipartisan issues near and dear to them. He also needs to start a PR campaign, “Think I’m bad, do you really want Pence” and to prove that - he should nominate a liberal, or centrist at worst, to replace Clarence Thomas.
@Barbara Franklin
Democrats will not 'side with him' anytime until after he wins again in 2020. And, he WILL win again in 2020 voters are watching and we see what's going on, what direction the left is trying to take us. He doesn't need any rabbits, he has the American Worker he has been watching out for every day of his Presidency deeply in his pocket.
"President Reagan famously marched out of a 1986 summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, rather than accept an arms control agreement with Russia that he regarded as flawed."
The first, and only, chance the world has had to eliminate all nuclear weapons, and Reagan walked away for his "Star Wars" research delusion. Another "great" Republican president.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjav%C3%ADk_Summit
3
It appears that a lot of American diplomacy regarding North Korea has been face-saving and unrealistic. The US does not want to accept that North Korea is a nuclear power.
Paul Waldman put it succinctly:
"If we define the North Korea 'problem' as the fact that they have nuclear weapons, there may be no solution."
And as Nicholas Eberstadt stated:
"Rational actors do not bargain away their core interests; only fools or traitors do."
1
One thing is crystal clear: DJT got bamboozled in Singapore! PM Abe needs to take back his letter to the Nobel Committee. The clear winners are common sense, Pompeo and Bolton.
Kim Jong Un won again.
Donald Trump, Sr. lost by walking into two meetings with Mr. Kim begging and looking for a deal. At 35 years old Mr. Kim has more governing political experience running a nation state than Donald Trump, his Cabinet and White House staff combined.
With the 4th largest military on Earth and the highest per capita number of people in uniform North Korea is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has nuclear weapons. Those nuclear weapons are what brought the leader of the most powerful socioeconomic diplomatic military superpower on Earth trying to make an artful deal.
As a party to the NPT with nuclear weapons, North Korea is on par with America, China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom. And North Korea is not like the rogue regimes with nuclear weapons who are not parties to the NPT and have nuclear weapons like Israel, India and Pakistan.
Mr. Kim knows what happened to Saddam Hussein and Moammar Qaddafi gave up their nukes. Mr. Kim knows how Trump torpedoed the Iran nuclear deal that involved America and many other nations.
And Mr. Kim knows that there is no North Korea nor South Korea. There is only one ethnic sectarian historical Korea divided by socioeconomic political diplomatic military civil war backed up by foreign powers.
2
I am SO not scared of NK and their con. Nuclear weapons are so 80s. I'm more terrified of the ending of our own nation.
1
No surprise here. This is a person in the WH who believes in his own charms, skill @deceit and walking away “ winning” every negotiation he enters.
That’ s not the business world nor the diplomatic world nor the social world....not any world.
Failure was expected. Both sides have to give. “ Give” is not in 45’s very very limited vocabulary. The word is far too “big” for him to digest.
@AdamStoler President Trump is confident in the military and economic power of the US to get what he wants without any concessions to be made by him.
Last time the only concession he made was to eliminate one military exercise in SK in return for the stop of nuclear testing by NK and photo ops.
1
Do people really think that Kim really cares about the Cohen hearings? The one who really got egg all over his face is Shinzo Abe. I wonder if the letter is being marked, unopened, "Return to Sender". And construction on the big, beautiful, sparkling showcase to put Trump's Nobel prize in can be cancelled. Kind of like declaring you should win the Oscar before you have even made the film.
1
When the economy and market fall in the next year, they will be the last card of Trump's absurd House of Cards of fake triumphs to collapse, as he gets ever closer to his orange jump suit and years of playing checkers with Madoff. Trump's presidency will end up the most colossal failure in American history. The universal scorn for this ridiculousl grifter, who's not even competent at grifting, will be like nothing we've ever seen in our political life. He'll make Nixon look like Lincoln.
2
He might have been right to walk but he was wrong to travel halfway across the world in the first place if his emissaries had not hammered something out ahead of time. This is what diplomats do for heaven's sake and leaders of nations show up for the ceremony. What has Pompeo being doing all this time? Clearly we are being led by a group of utter fools who have no clue how to lead a country.
2
@GinNYC
That is the most succinct wrap up, Gin.
This was just one more publicity stunt with no product to sell, which is really all Trump knows how to do, with the rare exception of having some property to sell. This whole "Korean thing" is sort of like running for President and having no plans in place on the off chance it happens to occur.
A much greater president than Mr. Donald J. Trump was FDR.
(And may I add: a much nicer man.)
But FDR (as it would appear) fell into the same trap as Mr. Trump. He staked his all on "personal relationships." He vowed to establish "a rapport" with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. "We call you Uncle Joe back in the States," he blurted out.
Unwisely. Stalin was unimpressed. "I should have been told this earlier--or not at all."
He lived to be totally disillusioned with the Russians. In the few days he had left.
Mr. Kim Jong-un. And Joseph Stalin. There are marked similarities. I don't think for a moment either of them was likely to trade the power--the prestige--the military might of his country--
--for a nice smile. Because the American President "likes me." Because "he's a great guy. And--better yet!--he thinks that I'M a nice guy."
Even democracies do not run that way. Let alone brutal dictatorships. Mr. Stalin and Mr. Kim Jong-un have four hands between them.
And those hands are red with blood. Russian blood. Korean blood.
In the light of which--as you rightly point out, Mr. Kristof--those blathering endearments our President has committed himself to--
--are downright embarrassing.
We may eventually put up someone capable of negotiating with Mr. Kim Jong-un. Someone hard-eyed--unsmiling--who really HAS mastered "the art of the deal."
I don't think Mr. Donald J. Trump is that man.
Does anyone?
1
We now see that the emperor truly has no clothes. Persuasive deal-making skills aside (he has none), he has also failed to heed the sound warnings of Obama and his own intelligence community, that this is a hard problem, and to be careful. Bluster, sham bookkeeping, and mob tactics that worked for him in real estate don't translate on the world stage. And just as his diplomacy failures are coming to light, so are details of his racist, conman tactics. As Cohen so aptly warned, those who continue to follow him blindly will suffer the same consequences he is now.
1
It has been evident all along that NK has no intention of ever giving up its nuclear weapons. Why would it, if that is its only bargaining chip, its only strength, the reason it made Trump (who doesn’t like to leave home but was happy for an excuse to escape as Cohen was testifying) go all the way to Asia ? Dangling prosperity, if Trump truly believed it to be a carrot, was fool’s gold for a country like NK, willing to starve its people and stay isolated to retain power.
Last but not least, it enjoys the continued support of both China and Russia, for the very reason that its nuclear weapons are a threat for the US.
At least Trump didn’t give away the store, but, as other commenters pointed out, that might just give him a reason to start a war as troubles pile up at home
Hungry for success, needing a "win" to further bolster his, Trump's image with his supporters.
That was a recipe for failure.
Kim realized that Trump was hungry and called Trump on that need.
However, I am surprised that Trump walked. I believed his need for a "win" would dictate otherwise.
So, Trump hasn't achieved too much more than previous administrations, administrations he calls "failures".
3
I guess I am somewhat confused, didn't they send a select group of people from the US to go ahead and work out the details of the summit. The details would include what each side expects and wants, plus what each side is willing to give for those expects and wants. so if that was done, then why did trump even go when it seemed fairly quick that both sides were far apart. seems like tax payers money wasted to me. I wonder how many trips to Mar-a-Lago that trip cost?
1
I would guess that we (the West) got lucky here. The "fake media's" critical coverage mattered.
Because of the intense scrutiny and condemnation Trump received after earlier meetings with Putin and Kim that were kept secret from even our own IC (translators' notes confiscated) and too conciliatory, our side was watching Trump very closely this time.
He didn't meet alone with Kim without others present (or the certainty of complete transcripts), hence he couldn't go off script and agree to Kim's demands - as much as he wanted to.
Trump was being watched, he so wanted to keep his "lover" happy, but was too shy to do consummate the deal with Pompeo and others witnessing the act.
4
The Art of the Deal!
Autocrats of the world listen up! Make up a list of things you strongly purport or deny. Send them to the President of the United States. His trained and seasoned intelligence might scoff but the President will buy-in, hook, line and sinker.
Now we must ask, When will the president's new love object re-transform himself back into Little Rocket Man, the target of "fire and fury like the world has never seen?"
1
"...he [Trump] gave Kim the enormous gift of legitimacy that comes with a summit, without getting anything comparable in return."
You're wrong. Kim definitely gave Trump something comparable to legitimacy.
Illegitimacy.
1
There goes the Nobel prize. This was a train wreck happening right under Trump's nose but he ignored all the warning signs leading up to it. People kept saying all along that Kim is a wily adversary whose only weapon is his nuclear arsenal and why ever would he give that up short of getting the sanctions erased and booting the US out of Korea. But does Trump ever listen to good advice? No. After all he is a master of the "art of the deal" and no one can tell him otherwise. Well he can keep on travelling at tax payers' expense but he is unlikely to be making any good deals now that his so-called deal-making savvy has been cracked wide open for all to see.
1
I was Naval Officer. And in the military during times of stress, combat, etc. one can often clearly see the difference between a real leader and a faux leader- or in some cases a disaster. The latter is frequently overwhelmed by the quick pace of events. Working with limited information in what can be life or death situations the real leader has genuine command, impeccable honesty and does everything to inspire and lead by example. Further, no one is fooled by the phony.
In the ship of state, Trump is a disaster. He confuses the appearance of leadership with its reality. He often makes matters worse, not better. His lack of discipline is not inspired (the knack for taking calculated risks based on insight) but dangerous.
Reaching out to Kim in this way has strengthened Kim's position. If the President reverts to his pre "threatening nuclear destruction" stance with North Korea- it will be disastrous. Trump is a weakened leader on the World stage. Other than himself- few believe in his credibility and most consider him a man without honor. That he is still President is no fault of his, but weak Republicans that put party and ideology above all else.
At this stage, let's pray the situation gets no worse and that a foundation- however weak- has been laid between the Koreas and the US- that can lead to stabilization and genuine negotiations. Maybe this is fantasy- but it is in the realm of possibility.
12
@Lowell That he is still President is no fault of his, but weak Republicans that put party and ideology above all else.
That is the frightening thing, the repubs close their eyes to excuse this sorry orange buffoon, all because he has a hold on 80% of 30 percent of said party, they will sell their grandmother to keep their jobs
1
@Lowell Greenberg
Oh please. After 8 years of Strategic Patience with Obama nothing could gets us into a worse position than the one Trump had on day one. You were a Officer in the Navy that doesn't make you an expert on Leadership. Kicking the can down the road for 8 years a sign of leadership? Leaving a festering sore for the next guy to tackle a sign of leadership? Trying to solve a problem no one else has dared to touch a sign of leadership? One of those answers is affirmative and you know which one it is.
Both Trump and Kim in their diplomatic naivete sought the Big Deal as though this were about real estate. All or nothing, your nukes for my sanctions, Nobel Peace Prize or bust. *Busted*.
In modern diplomatic theory Conflict Resolution is understood to involve many small, quiet steps behind closed doors away from cameras. C.R. is a trust-building process, not a publicity stunt. It is multilateral, not leaving out key stakeholders like South Korea, Japan, and China. From Camp David to Oslo, from the Balkans to Belfast it has been shown to bring slow but long-lasting results. A baseball fan would call it 'small ball', not swinging for a home run every time.
The object in Korea in not a quick nukes-for-sanctions swap. It is a permanent peace treaty to resolve a war that began in 1949. Proof of success, as in Germany, will come when the border opens, families are reunited, and peace and open trade North and South is ongoing. A Nobel Prize like the one given to Kissinger and rejected by Le Duc Tho in 1973 for 'ending' a war that actually ended two years later with the fall of Saigon is worthless. Small steps, please.
5
@Old Ben
Kim was not naive
Time is on his side - to make his nuclear weapons program permanent
He will also reap the benefits of a substantial increase in sanctions violations by China, Russia and others
Trump can not go back to his empty threats.
The summit was a big win for Kim
1
I don't see any mention of interpreters; were our interpreters allowed into their private talks?
Ah, "South Korean president Moon Jae-in" gets a nod in this column, and rightfully so. What say we nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize for having gotten the conversation started in the first place? Call it "shooting for the moon."
1
If you have read Jacqueline Winspear’s Maise Dobbs series you would know that this character mimics the posture and movements of the person she is speaking with to figure them out and allowing them to open up. I feel I’ve seen this same thing with trump, very much displayed in this photo. I felt I saw it in his smile and wave, both a reflection of Kim’s.
Just an observation.
1
“Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that,”
If you look back in history you will see that there is a recurring scheme in the way North Korea negotiates even under the direst of circumstances and that this was just a continuation of these past types of negotiations.
North Korea always started nicely and then stepped up the heat a bit by showing off a new weapons system in order to get what it wants, which was usually some sort of food aid.
Same here.
The entire idea behind the nuclear weapons program for North Korea is to be taken serious as a threat in order to get a few concessions from the US in exchange for stepping down from the war drums that in reality were never meant for calling a real war.
Internally the system them told its people that North Korea had just won another glorious victory and that the food that came in was some sort of payment from the losers.
Any real politician, so Trump does not count, would have learned from this lesson.
Give the North Koreans something and in return they will step down a bit and the cycle will start anew.
Trump called for all and not just a bit of a concession and that can never work as it would let Kim lose his face.
So the summit had to fail, but that is not much of an issue as North Korea already has begun its own negotiations with South Korea and does not really need the US any more.
Let the two Koreas sort it out on their own, which now has the best chance in decades.
4
@Thomas
I agree that Kim doesn’t need the US anymore.
The negotiations were a charade that allows NK to solidify its nuclear weapons program (needed only to protect the regime), while continuing on a path to economic normalization.
Trump was used as a puppet... again
Declaring yourself "in love" might not be the best negotiating stance.
2
So now we are likely to go back to where N. Korea was during the Obama administration - testing nukes and firing missiles. So much for progress.
1
I remember when president Obama went to Cuba and had a news conference with the Cuban president. The Cuban looked surprised when reporter's shouted out questions. Obama response was this is how a open country works. Trump response in the same spot was to bar four reporter's. Shows the true colors of both men.
19
If Trump or anyone for that matter wants to denuclearize NK, then negotiate with China not Kim. What is the GDP of NK based on? What do they sell? What do they export? Where do they get weaponry or nuclear materials and how? They are China's Frankenstein monster to shake at the world.
2
@Mickey
You are absolutely correct. This is a problem only China can solve and they could do it by opening their border with NK. This is an outcome the US should be negotiating with China, SK, Japan, and maybe Russia. Right now China has no incentive to do it because, as you said, Frankenstein's monster, and also it would be hugely expensive and disruptive for China to manage the thousands of N Koreans flooding into their country. But China is a vast, rich nation and could handle it. If done right, Kim's regime would collapse. Seems this scenario is at least worth considering. But it all hinges on China.
1
President Obama negotiated the end of the Iranian nuclear program. President Trump has made a new friend.
2
Meanwhile, in the background China continues to "manage" NK. Without China at the table nothing of substance will take place. This was just wasteful taxpayer money sending Trump on another fruitless boondoggle.
2
Sorry Mr. Kristof, but you seem to have missed what happened in Vietnam. This was not about NK, it's about tariffs. Subsidizing NK is chump change if Xi can force the US to capitulate to Xi's demands on tariffs.
Coupled to Cohen's testimony, Xi saw the opportunity to weaken the US tariff position by denying Trump a success in NK. Therefore, Kim made the most outrageous demands imaginable.
Kim & Xi played the situation masterfully. Any junior officer could see this coming.
Given Trump's abject failure in NK, the US will be forced to capitulate to Xi's demands on tariffs to give Trump the victory he desperately needs.
By coordinating their actions, Kim and Xi boxed America into a corner.
Cohen confirmed what all of us who have watched Trump's lifelong career already knew. Trump is emotionally & intellectually unable to handle the task at hand. And Pence is not the solution, he's merely a continuation of the problem. Waiting for the next election is not a solution either.
Climate Change will not wait two years, neither should we.
6
@Karl M (USMC retired)
Finally, a conspiracy theory worthy of the name. Xi using Kim as the cats=paw in his far bigger game. Makes you wonder what Russia might be up to?
This was a Summit based on misjudgments! Mr.Kim thought his flattery of Trump and the cessation of testing would be adequate to win Trump over.Mr.Trump spoke in such optimistic terms of the meeting even including the fairy tale that a Peace Prize might be a reward that Kim thought he could pull off a cheap bargain-to stop testing and get relief from sanctions.Mr.Trump thought he could sell a vision of a rich, industrialized North Korea to Kim in exchange for his giving up his nuclear weapons.Both men badly misjudged the situation in which they found themselves.
1
Kim read Trump as so desperate for a deal that he would accept the most one-sided proposal since Munich in 1938. Fortunately, Trump said no.
Now, we are back to square one.
Where are trumps interpreters? Did he meet with kim and his interpreters alone? Why?
Watch twitter for both Trump and the republican neo cons to start braying how the Cohen hearing sabotaged Trump's negotiations with Kim Jong Un.
Remember, it's never about Trump.
4
Trump failed again as anyone with half a brain predicted because he obviously doesn't know what he's doing, has no actual deal-making skills, and he lead Kim to believe that he would accept whatever deal can put on the table. All this is more show for Trump, who doesn't actually want peace unless he gets the credit for it. He wouldn't care about any medium-scale conventional war or small nuclear war as long as he wasn't blamed for it.
He's currently shopping around for an opportunity to wag the dog with a controllable demonstration of American military might (Venezuela?), but because he doesn't know how anything works and he has no judgment or willingness to learn, it will likely get away from him. He's going to turn to more desperate and risky tactics as the 2020 election approaches because he knows that if he leaves office in January, 2021 that he will likely be in prison the following year.
3
First, you have to at least give Trump credit for trying. Previous presidents have done no better and at least now there is an open line of communication between North Korea and the US.
Secondly, one thing we should remember from the Iceland talks between the US and Russia is that when the final deal was settled Gorbachov offered total denuclearization.
He proposed that the US and Russia lead the world in ending nuclear weapons. This time it was Reagan who blinked and said 'no.'
Had we said yes back then, there would be no North Korean nukes or fear of Iranian nukes today.
History sometimes teaches bitter lessons.
7
Credit? Nope. Trump announced the terms of the deal he walked away from were the terms North Korea has demanded for a decade. He seems unaware of that (as does the media).
He didn’t say they “continue to insist” on sanctions relief first, or words to that effect. He said they demanded it, as if we were starting de novo. And why not? For Trump, every day is de novo, except for grudges.
Credit isn’t due when better choices were available. Trump has said he believes his deal-making prowess is second to none, and his personal rapport will win the day. Pure ego. A humbler man — a rational president — would have let Kim deal with the State Department until some meaningful outline was agreed on, including, say, the definition of “denuclearization”.
No credit. Just egotistical bungling. That noise you hear is the collective sigh of relief nothing worse happened.
It's important to understand who is suffering from the failure of these negotiations. It's not the U.S., and it's not Trump. It's North Korea. They're still one of the poorest nations on earth--still suffering under a brutal embargo. All this talk about elevating Kim, simply by meeting with him his bunk. He had an opportunity to move his country out of the dark ages--he let it slip through his fingers.
6
@Jesse The Conservative
It is Trump's fault for not listening to experts on foreign dealings with N Korea.
It is Trump's fault for embracing a ruthless dictator that would make Stalin proud. And giving Kim a place on the world stage.
It is Trump's fault for stopping the joint exercises without any concession from N Korea.
1
@glennmr, and whose fault is it that Kim has 40-60 nuclear warheads--and intercontinental ballistic missiles? Could it be....Obama?
And who gets the credit for the cessation of North Korean nuclear testing, and the firing of missiles? Trump?
Don’t be fooled, Mr. Kristof, the Trump-Kim summit accomplished exactly what it was intended to do. It created a temporary diversion and briefly spirited the ‘Godfather in Chief’ out of harms way from the Cohen hearings.
32
@Misterbianco
This is more damaging than the Cohen hearings. What other President would travel across the globe to play kissy kissy with a man that makes Maduro look like mother Theresa and then come away with nothing.
1
@Fred Berry... With comments like, “Sometimes you just have to walk away,” Trump is already spinning it as a tough talk victory and his low-expectation base will line up right behind him.
Upon Trump’s return from the North Korea Conference I, he boasted of his success; we know, that was a sham. Denuclearization II was a set-up, another sham, revealed, when Trump, only days ago, downplayed our expectations.
It’s easy to say he left early, because he didn’t get the initial concession he wanted. There was no second effort, no pursuit, no patient diplomacy.
No, the real reason he ‘walked’ is, because the would-be spectacle of our not-so-fearless leader was outshined by the stunning revelations in Rep. Cummings’ hearing, where Michael Cohen pulled back the curtain on all of the disgraceful greed, the lying, the deception, the very dismantling of our institutions, which we have long suspected, and now we know.
Trump’s attempt at diplomacy was not only shallow, but weakened us, another sham.
4
Did Trump walk to set up an excuse to start a war to distract us from impeachment? Does anyone doubt he will be ruthless in holding on to power?
4
It was a great victory he will tell us.
The love I have for Chairman is stronger than ever...
We parted sooner because The Chairman missed his Dear Country and I missed my MAGA Land!
1
South Korea and North Korea are the ones that need to be resolving the issue of peace and confrontation in Korea. Russia, USA and China need to back out of the talks. Until agreement is reached between the two Koreas, there cannot be lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. It is high time they became something more than Cold War surrogates. The two Koreas will also have to reach long lasting accommodation with Japan, on their terms. It is baffling why anyone would have expected trump to conclude any meaningful deal, his own house is in disarray and trying to wing it in a slipshod fashion is not going to accomplish anything with North Korea. He failed and that is probably a good thing as any deal he would have reached probably would not be sustainable. Air Force One and the rest of the Presidential Fleet needs to be grounded for a long term overhaul. The less they fly at present, the better off it will be for the country.
1
While I hold no hope that Trump will accomplish anything positive with North Korea, you’re mistaken to think that peace there is strictly a local concern. You’re forgetting that North Korea’s army and arsenal threaten South Korea and Japan. Before long, if not already, their missiles will threaten Australia and the United States.
@James K. Lowden Perhaps it is the other way around. The North Koreans may look upon their Armed Forces as "Defensive" in nature. Besides, I don't consider it a "local" issue. When it is all said and done, nothing lasting can come about until the two Koreas reach accommodation with each other.
Let's not count this as a "win" for President Trump, who, because of his "expert negotiating skills," recognized a bad deal and walked away.
The President was completely outsmarted by Kim Jong-un, who has played to Mr. Trump's vanity all along. It was a public relations win for North Korea, who wants to be seen (as it always has) as a major player on the world stage. It got what it wanted, and gave up nothing.
We all agree that we want the President - any President - to be successful negotiating with North Korea. But Mr. Trump has no idea what he's doing; he's completely out of his depth, and is too ignorant and arrogant to learn, thinking he could just charm Mr. Kim to do what he wants.
Mr. Trump was precisely as successful in getting North Korea to denuclearize as he was getting Mexico to build a wall, creating a brand new health care system, bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States, passing a 10% middle class tax cut, etc.
14
The summit failure is a reminder that North Korea does not have the same leverage over Trump that is held by Saudi Arabia and Russia (exhibit: Khashoggi and Ukraine); otherwise, Trump would have dropped all sanctions and allowed Kim to keep his nuclear weapons. SAD!
1
I guess lots of people don't get it. NK has nuclear weapons and there's not a darn thing we can do about it - not at a price that anyone wants to pay. Let's stop pretending.
7
The emporer really has no clothes. His love affair with Kim is on the rocks, his former best lawyer turned state evidence, his spawn is implicated in his crimes and the democrats own the House investigative committees. All the republicans can do in support is look harsh and silly.
It's taking too long but the ending chapters of the rise and fall of the trump crime family are being written in very large letters.
11
How could he get a good deal after announcements that he was backing off the most important requirements before he even arrived in Hanoi?
Maybe he needed Michael Cohen to threaten Kim the way he did other trump adversaries in the past.
Are we supposed to feel safer now? Or has the trump fraud been magnified? Have his domestic problems impacted the ability of the USA to negotiate from a position of power?
What’s next? Escalating the rhetoric?
Maybe the real point here is that Kim gets recognition of his presumed power by these meetings but never had an intention of backing off his weapons. He cares less about his people than trump does about America.
Neither of them is believable.
8
Considering that Trump walked away from a bad deal with Kim with the aftermath of Cohen's testimony to congress to come back to, I think he showed more maturity than at any other time in his presidency. That it was the best thing Trump could have done given the circumstances, doesn't mean that it was all that great... but at least it wasn't the disaster I was expecting. And yeah, kudos to Trump for acting like an adult!
Having said that, one question remains: when you think 'acting adult' rates a compliment to a 72 year old man, do you imagine that man in a senior care facility, or the White House?
1
While I dislike Trump and all that he represents as much as anyone, and while I harbored no real hope for the outcome of this meeting, it is a dark day nonetheless. The fact is, here we have two very unstable men in possession of seemingly absolute power in two countries with nuclear weapons. Of course the US would destroy NK if it comes to war, but at what cost, especially to our allies in the region? Trump's failure here is not cause for celebration. Quite the contrary. But at least I am glad that he chose not to accept an impossible deal, for he might well have done so.
1
Yes, he was right to walk. But he should never have had the first summit with Kim, which accorded the North Korean leader international recognition and suspended joint U.S.-South Korean training exercises in return for nothing more than a photo op. And he should never have had the second summit, making another important concession before it even started by not demanding a full accounting of all North Korea's nuclear facilities and weapons, let alone a verification commitment. As for the sanctions, they mean nothing since China and Russia are helping Kim to skirt them.
8
"With normal presidents, summit deals are largely agreed upon ahead of time. As one veteran diplomat put it, presidents pull rabbits out of hats, after diplomats have worked diligently ahead of time to stuff the rabbits into the hats."
Astute analysis, as usual, Nicholas Kristof. I woke up in the middle of the night, and to my great surprise, found Donald Trump announcing the talks had ended abruptly. My fear, naturally, was some sort of stomping of feet.
But no, it was a peaceful rupture, if one can put those two words in one sentence. But I'm happier that Mike Pompeo seemed to have more sway over a president likely totally distracted by the happenings in Washington.
The banning of reporters makes me cringe, however. There seems to be something, a creeping authoritarianism displayed by Trump once he's in the company of autocrats, who he seems to trust more than his own policy experts.
That, coupled with Michael Cohen's ominous warning that Mr. Trump would not go lightly if not reelected, made my hair stand on end.
If past is prologue, I think we'd better get ready for fireworks on his return to Washington.
20
Consider me crazy, but I can't help but feel that the Cohen hearing and Trumps need to divert the news from that topic had a good deal to do with Trumps abrupt end of talks and return to the US.
13
Funny that Trump gravitates to despots like Kim Jong-un and Putin, and clashes immediately with more law- and alliance-agreement-abiding leaders like Trudeau and Merkel. Particularly juxtaposed with the criminal acts of his former personal attorney (Cohen), his former campaign manager (Manafort), etc. Trump is most comfortable with criminals and seeks them out. He has nothing in common with law abiding people.
14
One of the few praiseworthy things Trump has done was to walk away from that bad deal.
Of course, he shouldn’t have gone without better preparation.
7
So, you're (like Trump did) equalling some economic sanctions (which are gratuitous -- they don't make any difference for the United States) to nuclear war.
Ok, it's your right to think that way. But I imagine the message it sent to you loyal allies, the South Koreans.
P.S.: Another strange thing is this: if capitalism is so superior than socialism, why don't the USA simply lift the sanctions and let the "free market" do its magic in North Korea? If the theory is correct, North Korea will become capitalist by osmosis, since capitalism is the superior, "natural" system.
14
Hands up all those who are surprised that these talks went absolutely nowhere. Anyone?
The art of the deal isn't quite as easy at the governmental level after all.
22
THEATER, THEATER, THEATER....Trump used Kim, like he uses everyone around him, as a ploy, to both divert attention from the Cohen hearing, and, to portray himself as a tough guy. Putting aside the damage Cohen is doing to his administration, Trump was unhappy that all media outlets, even Fox, have portrayed him as a pawn of Kim at their last meeting---he can't have that---So, this meeting he had to reassert that he is the Alpha male in the room. He walked into that meeting woefully unprepared to do any form of real deal, in fact, knew that Kim was probably playing him----excellent time for an Apprentice Like meeting---"Chairman Kim, you are fired."
14
I think a lot of readers here misunderstand Trump's tactics on North Korea.
I'm starting to think a lot of this was planned, by Trump's advisers most likely.
Kim Jong Un did not look the same as he did in Singapore. Back then, he had just come out of successful tests of his program, and felt confidence he would now get what he wants.
A year later, nothing materialized. This is bad for Kim. He promised his people that nuclear weapons would guarantee economic prosperity and bring relief to the people. He's staking his regime on it.
It hasn't. And Trump knows this. Looking "defeated" in Singapore made Kim triumphantly parade his success in North Korea. But now?
Kim has been under pressure to deliver. He knows he has to but hasn't been able to deliver enough. He's recently purged (again) officials. He's paranoid, he's worried.
Everyone knows North Korea CAN denuclearize but only if Kim is removed. See Venezuela, Maduro's mishaps and outside pressure are pushing Venezuelans to remove him.
Trump doesn't have to lift sanctions, ever. And Pompeo influencing Trump is just an act. Trump wants to be Kim's confidante, "hey look I like you and I really tried but I have to walk away. So if you fire missles, you'll betray these good feelings and I will definitely not lift sanctions". That Kim spoke first about lifting sanctions, shows he's under pressure.
I really hope things work out the way Trump wants. Trump defused the crisis while keeping sanctions, not bad actually
5
@df: Crises come and go but the nuclear weapons remain.
"The president was right to walk rather than accept a bad deal"
That is not relevant.
The point here is that Trump should have done the diplomatic due diligence required ahead of time to know that this would be Kim's stance. Instead, Trump essentially jumped on a plane to go to these "talks" with no understanding of what Kim's position was and therefore no foundation about how to get to the desired outcome for America.
Pompeo is the guilty one for failing to do the groundwork here, but Trump is the obvious amateur overall.
This "walking away" is an embarrassing sign of weakness and ineptitude for our country. Trump needs to understand that he can't rely on his gut instinct to deal with irrational rulers like Kim.
It's not better to walk away instead of accepting a bad deal. It's better to know ahead of time what the intentions of your adversary are so that embarrassing situations like this one can be avoided. That comes with experience and expertise, things which are very far from Trump's skill set.
12
Kim got all he needed out of Trump. The North Korean regime was legitimized by Trump treating them as an equal. Kim was effusively and constantly praised in the most servile manner by Trump. In short, the summit accomplished all of North Korea’s goals, so they left.
Trump, the self proclaimed master negotiator, got nothing but humiliation and defeat.
15
This is just further evidence of Trump's amateur nature, even as a businessman.
No businessman with an ounce of sense would get on a plane to Vietnam without having the major points of a deal hashed out, in no uncertain terms. If you don't have that, then it won't happen and you don't waste your time.
Trump is an amateur statesman as well, to risk the prestige and funds of the US on this bound-to-fail gambit.
12
@Michael B.,
I fully agree, but Trump has other motives, he just goes for the limelight in Fox & Friend.
"Look fans, I'm meeting little rocket man and I make myself Great Again - just kidding, I only aim for the Nobel Peace Price and I am available for the ceremony at Mar a Lago next weekend"
1
Well, the photo-op didn't turn out so well after all...and naturally, it's us the tax payers who shoulder the enormous cost of this utterly useless junket...
As a wise poet said: "Out of the window flies the Nobel Prize, but in the doorway looms the SDNY".
It doesn't rhyme, but that's okay.
15
Of course, Trump was correct to walk away from only partial de-nuclearization by North Korea. To accept that would have been to repeat the mistakes of several of our past presidents.
We are back to where we were before. North Korea is still the threat to peace that it has always been. Trump has not (not yet, anyway) succeeded to improve the terrible (the true meaning of the word) situation we were in as a result of past bad deals by past presidents.
Trump's persistent arrogance has accomplished nothing other than to expose that he has thus far demonstrated no greater ability to deal with the North Korea threat than did less arrogant past presidents. Perhaps that will be a lesson to Trump....but I doubt it.
However, in fairness to Trump and to past presidents, none of them really failed. Rather, they all were not unable of achieve success. The reason is that the North Korean dictator family has for generations been a succession of truly evil people. Recognizing and acknowledging evil is something that educated westerners find very difficult to do. But that doesn't mean there is not evil. It only means that those westerners are not as wise as they think they are.
29
@Errol I agree, excepting that the Chinese and before them, the Soviets propped up the Kim regime and are largely to blame today for lack of sanctions enforcement.
4
@Errol
North Korea did not invent nor has it ever used nuclear weapons.
North Korea does not have 47.5% of the world's nuclear weapons.
North Korea did not invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.
North Korea did not engineer coups in Iran, Egypt, Iraq and Libya.
North Korea is not waging war against the Houthi in Yemen nor the Palestinians in Gaza.
North Korea did not hack and meddle in the 2016 American Presidential campaign and election.
North Korea is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has nuclear weapons unlike Israel, India and Pakistan.
11
@Blackmamba
Moreover, North Korea did not renig on the previous agreement with the Clinton administration. It was the US that renigged in not facilitating the nuclear power as it had agreed to.
5
This is a repeat of past dealing with Kim by previous presidents.
The presidents threaten increase military pressure and Kim backs off future nuke tests and then a short time later resumes them.
The only difference with Trump is that he did it by promoting, legitimizing, blessing a known butcher like Kim.
We went from being the guardian of democracy, human rights to aiding and abetting one of the biggest butchers in history.
A sad day for America.
14
No NOBEL Prize here for Trump, but Mr. Kristof shows that diplomacy is always good and recently, no new rockets. Dialogue is good, but shouldn't contain praise and elevated status for an unworthy recipient who is widely known to be a cruel dictator. NK is continuing to develop it's war capabilities and that is why the peace effort ought to be expanded to include some of those involved nearly 70 years ago. Japan must be excluded because they created the mess and also Russia who took advantage of the situation. Possibly, but not at the moment, a solution that involves China, South Korea and the UN with North Korea and the United States could evolve into a result benefiting all Koreans and reducing a nuclear threat for all of us.
4
"It’s perfectly appropriate to engage with ruthless dictators, but fawning over them is a betrayal of our values."
I love US. I lived in US for three years while doing a post doc training and I intend to move to US for good in the near future as Brazil has taken a turn for the worse last year. And that is going to last. But, I am LOL to this "betrayal of our values sentence". You only do not do that when is in your interests. In all over LA US have helped to install and have supported dictatorship, military dictatorship of the far right spectrum of politics, and have never helped any LA country strength democracy. That is why US should leave the negotiations in Venezuela. The engagement of US is only delaying Venezuelans to get rid of that ridiculous dictator.
16
A fair number of people have been writing how Trump was gamed by Kim in the past...and Trump is not the type to accept such with equanimity.
There is a reasonable chance that Trump had always planned on walking away just to try and show that he is "tougher" than Kim. (most people knew Kim was not going to cave on nukes and wanted sanctions lifted.)
6
Could be that Trump left because he's suffering from low energy. You know, the thing he always accused Mrs. Clinton and Jeb Bush of suffering.
14
Mr. Trump walked out of a meeting he should have never ran into in pursuit of vanity prize he is certainly not presently entitled to. That said, "Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall inherit the earth". When it comes to peace "hope springs eternal" - even if it refers to Mr. Trump's efforts.
4
Given trump’s propensity to lie about even trivial matters, his statement that talks ended over sanctions is already suspect. I can’t believe anything this administration tells us.
15
Listening to the recap on NPR an expert on relations with Korea mentioned how far away "normalization" of North Korea was. I immediately thought about what will happen when the North Korean people find out how profoundly they have been lied to and that their suffering was intentional as it was unnecessary.
My next thought will be what will happen here in the US when the 30% or so staunch Trump voters find out how profoundly they have been lied to by the GOP.
Such potentially explosive situations are the most dangerous legacies carried by both Trump and Kim.
I'll be honest, I don't feel sympathy to the fooled. I know I should but my life has been ruined, living in poverty and no health care despite working my entire life. At least Trump supporters had a choice of what to believe and chose badly. North Koreans didn't have a choice. What does that say about Trump supporters? What do they owe us? Do I owe them anything, a pardon? Not feeling it.
19
I daresay nothing of real value or importance will happen in the relationship between the US and North Korea until the Trump travesty of his "presidency" is ended with his departure from the White House which, hopefully, will come sooner rather than later. The most we can hope for at this time is that North Korea will put a lid on its nuclear fantasy adventures until the US can come up with responsible diplomats and a creditable "wish list" that would or could ease tensions between the two nations.
5
Real presidents plan for months ahead of time, have aides who are experts in the fields of research and negotiations, read up on history and are versed in diplomacy. Trump doesn't prepare and surrounds himself with amateurs. He says he goes with his gut feeling rather than with intelligence briefings. In other words, he doesn't know what he's doing.
In a battle of wits, Trump always comes unarmed.
82
A good negotiator would be able to push for what they want, but also do so, in such a manner, that both sides feel like they can come away with a victory. A good negotiator would do so in small steps. And, a good negotiator would not leave in a huff and condemn the other party.
This just shows how out of his league Trump truly is. Since taken office, he thought that being president was an easy job, and it does not require effort to get things done. Be it trade deals, treaties, dealing with allies, enemies, nationals ans international issues.
While his supporters continue to blindly support him, and even praise him, the truth is everything Trump has done has been an abject failure or made bad situations; worse.
On top of all of this, he has coddled Putin, Kim, the House of Saud, Maduro, etc., while at the same time condemned all of our allies. For what purpose, to make him look like a strongman. to do as he says "Make America Great Again". Well, w5 months in; American is not looking so great.
Kennedy once said:
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too."
This is applicable for handling the job President of the United States; something Trump can't do.
34
@Nick Metrowsky
Trump says Kim didn’t know what was happening to Otto Warmbier while he was being tortured in a North Korean prison- as if Kim doesn’t know EVERYTHING that happens in his prisons, especially to Americans.
But Trump believes Kim, just like he believes Putin and MbS of Saudi Arabia.
1
@Nick Metrowsky
Do you think we can find a POTUS that can restate JFK's statement and put it into the context of climate change?
1
President Trump was correct to reject this deal.
However, ostentatiously walking away from a negotiation is President Trump's thing; it's described in his book, and he famously did it during divorce proceedings with Ivana and during the shutdown negotiations with the Democrats, to cite just two well-known, not-particularly-successful examples. So Kim will recognize this for the empty table-pounding it is and knows to wait a little while; Trump will be back, and I shudder to imagine what he'll be willing to give away then.
4
We'll never know if Trump walked out as a strategic move from the Art of the Deal or whether he simply threw a temper tantrum. Everyone admits that it would be insane for either side to launch their nuclear arsenals against the other. Few, however, see the insanity in placing ourselves in a position where MAD is not only possible, but probably inevitable. If we are to pull away from the ridiculous posture we've now assumed, there will need to be a paradigm shift in human thought around the world. If not, we are doomed.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a linguistic "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
3
[Unfortunately, North Korea is an otherwise unimportant country that gets attention only when it behaves provocatively. So its leaders have learned that their best leverage is to fire missiles, detonate warheads, or start up nuclear complexes.]
One possibility, perhaps, but is there really a need to do so?
Kim last year announced that there was no need for further nuclear and missile tests. Trump's two fawning visits to Kim confirmed that.
Trump may walk away but Kim still has those missiles and is building more for the 60 or so nuclear missile heads he is reported to be able to produce. More than enough to keep everyone nervous.
With confirmation of his power and ability to make an American president come to him, he has more than enough cache to work deals with South Korea particularly now that Trump has signalled that South Korea's interests are not a priority for America.
3
A very generous headline Mr Kristof.
The bar is so low, that when Trump does one obvious thing right among many wrong, we need to compliment him on the right one.
13
Of course, the options in response to any offer in any context are a) accept, b) reject, or c) reject and then counteroffer in a continued negotiation to get a good deal.
Not surprisingly, Trump picked one of the choices that was most suitable for a lazy disinterested man, and also not surprisingly, expects our congratulations for giving up.
20
@Yeah
His base will believe it was Kim's fault. The guy in the White House will praise himself while accomplishing nothing.
That the big guy was overseas is no surprise. There, he could continue his charade as a tough guy.
As long as there are Congressional committee meetings there will be less sleep in the White House. Once the special counsel releases his report, the real business of The President will be exposed. Snake oil salesman is his vocation.
3
It's interesting to speculate about the future of North Korea. Judging by his appearance and family history, Kim might only live another 20 to 30 years. Considering that there were major signs of instability in the transfer of power to him, it might be even less likely that a fourth generation of his family will lead the country. Sanctions have their place, but probably the most dangerous thing North Korea might do is sell nuclear and missile technology if it becomes desperate enough. The best approach might be to keep a moderate amount of pressure on North Korea to limit but not cripple it. In time, the contradictions of such a country might sort themselves out without too much involvement from us.
5
How did Trump screw this up? Let us count the ways.
First, a face-to-face meeting with a US President is something that North Korean leaders have sought for decades. They desperately wanted the legitimacy such a tete-a-tete confers. Trump gave that to Kim—twice—right off the bat and got nothing for it. What’s next? A long weekend of golfing for Kim at Mar-Lago?
Without consulting his secretary of defense and others in the military, Trump suspended major military exercises with South Korea after the first summit. The rationale was that they cost too much. What kind of signal did that send to Kim?
After Singapore, Trump declared that “there is no longer a nuclear threat” from North Korea, even though no concrete measures had been agreed upon at the summit. “Sleep well, America” will go down in history alongside other overly optimistic utterances by world leaders. “Peace in our time” and “Mission accomplished” come to mind.
Trump was right to walk away. The question is, why was he in Hanoi in the first place?
141
@NA Trump was in Hanoi so he'd be out of the country when Michael Cohen spoke.
30
@Linda
How'd that work out for him?
10
People are misinterpreting this NOKO Summit. This was a total success. President Trump and Kim Jong-Un had discussed many important topics. I agree with President Trump when he decided to abruptly leave. I know this is in the article but, President Reagan had backed out of the Iceland Summit in 86’ with Russia, then a couple months later, Russia agreed to the United States’ terms.
6
Problem is, President Trump is no Ronald Reagan by a long shot. No comparison; not even close.
1
@Christopher Murphy
A total success for North Korea, perhaps. Trump's "fake" summit was nothing more than another example of Trump's abuse of tax payer dollars.
When an American president travels around the world to negotiate personally with the dictator of a tiny country not once but twice, doesn't that degrade the status and influence of the United States and enhance the status and influence of the dictator of a tiny country? I really don't understand why the greatest economy with the greatest military should be giving "Little" Kim more than a "Make my day" promise that if he should ever launch the first missile against the US or any ally, his little country will be ashes in a matter of hours. Trump has already said that but it should have not been necessary to say it publicly. As for using economic development carrots to get NK denuclearization, do American workers and manufacturers really need more competition from low-wage countries? Should American taxpayers foot the bill for economic aid or whatever enticements Trump has in mind when so many Americans are medically uninsured and living in financial distress, to say nothing of the investments we need to make in higher education, infrastructure and climate change mitigation?
32
@Abigail49. Do we think if Trump had spent this week in Wash DC that he would have lifted a finger to tweet about health care, education, infrastructure or any thing else of import ? Doubtful. Vietnam was an epic waste of our attention this week but I don’t scold a president from a big nation meeting with a nuclear rogue from a small nation. Size does not matter. What counts is whomever can take the steps to reduce nuclear risk in East Asia, that should be encouraged.
2
@abigail49
"...degrade the status and influence of the United States..."
This president has shown many times that he certainly does not need to travel halfway around the work to do that.
12
@Will Eigo What about some globe-trotting face-time presidential diplomacy with the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Couldn't he charm and "fall in love" with Hassan Rouhani too? I'm all for "taking steps," which is the agreement President Trump and our allies plus Russia made with Iran that Trump tossed out.
In a week when NYTimes pundits were saying "how can Trump avoid caving to Kim?", how can his walking away be defined as a failure? Oh, by saying he got bamboozled last time. I see. And Clinton, who is the reason NKorea is a nuclear state was not bamboozled? Why don't we all just pull back and admit we have had 27 years of bad leadership, epic in its incompetence, vast in its greed, and bottomless in its moral vacuity? There is after all a reason why voters decided in 2016 to elect Trump. They had watched the press carry water for Obama as he deployed constitutionally questionable tactics on domestic policy. Watched as the media fawned over his inept dismantling for US foreign policy foundations. Watched as everyone on the Left turned a blind eye to provably illegal activities by the Democrat candidate and her husband. And they were stunned as the administrative state was allowed to weaponize its processes against conservative citizens to the roaring silence of the zombies who call themselves journalists these days. I am glad Trump walked away in these talks .Wish he had not gone. But more importantly I wish Kristoff and his ilk had been paying attention back in the early 1990s when all the really wrong decisions about this were being made.
7
@JMR "Clinton is the reason NKorea is a nuclear state? Hardly, and you provide no evidence for your claim. The situation is much more complicated than you present in your anti-liberal diatribe you present here, and goes back to the 1950's. Obama resorted to executive orders because he was intentionally blocked by Republicans, who effectively crippled his presidency at every turn. Obama also restored America's respect among our allies in the free world after W. had destroyed it by his disastrous Iraq invasion. Clinton's "provable illegal activities?" E-mail or Benghazi, you mean? Come on, get serious, these were fabricated "scandals" while Trump's shady deals are clear and obvious. Your attack on "zombies" in the press who allow some imaginative administrative state to "weaponize against conservative citizens" is pure paranoia. What would you have had Clinton do in the '90's? Invade North Korea? At least he wasn't cozying up to this murderous monster like Trump seems to be doing.
2
Yes, finally. Something all good conservatives can agree on. Whatever the question or situation, it was all Clinton's fault. Bravo!
1
Trump is not the only one misunderstanding Kim's position.
Little North Korea shares borders with 2 nuclear superpowers and a thriving South Korea, protected by a 3rd nuclear superpower, us.
He received his education in an equally small Switzerland, which has kept its autonomy, and its peace, through two World Wars, when it was surrounded by hugely powerful combatants who over ran every other small nation in their path. It even prospered while doing so.
Maybe Kim saw that if one could demonstrate it would cost more to overrun one's nation than it was worth, then one could survive. Otherwise, it probably would only be a matter of time before one of his neighbors did just that.
I don't think Kim wants to commit possible national suicide. He'll never totally give up his nuclear potential.
21
@Brian: your comparison of n. korea with Switzerland is wrong.. Switzerland succeeded by claiming neutrality. But kim is trying to succeed with threatened aggression.
@Stan Gomez
Switzerland had universal military training and over a million armed civilian soldiers. Records from the times show the potential cost was the major reason for them not being attacked.
I know that Norway and Sweden were also not overrun, but all of Central Europe, except Switzerland was engulfed, despite many protestations of neutrality.
Check it out.
I don't think the talks collapsed so much as Trump collapsed. Probably distracted by the five felony charges that should ought to be coming his way soon.
41
I am no Trump supporter, but I wonder where we would be with North Korea with neocon Clinton at the helm? Would she have stayed completely in a standard, foreign policy box or would she have taken bold steps for peace? Like Obama, I think she would have stayed in the box. In 2017, North Korea was acting quite bellicose, setting off numerous missile launches and making daily, saber rattling, provocative statements against the U.S. At least, for the time being, that has stopped. That's better than where we could have been. Yes, things may unravel . . . well, then we'll be back to square one.
(Of course, had Trump "made a deal," there would have been a great hew and cry that he had given away the farm.)
6
@Joanna Whitmire. “In 2017, North Korea was acting quite bellicose, setting off numerous missile launches and making daily, saber rattling, provocative statements against the U.S.“
Would North Korea have done so if Hillary Clinton were president instead of the clearly inexperienced and incompetent Trump? That’s certainly open to debate.
2
@Joanna Whitmire
'Obama, Clinton'; I suspect there is little else that can be done short of attack, invasion, occupation for decades.
Trump simply made Kim stronger and gave China a better excuse to support him.
1
@NA
No its not open to debate. He would have viewed Hillary as the third term of Obama and acted exactly as if Obama had stayed in Office. The debate is around what Hillary would have done, not what Kim would have done. Stay on point.
1
The whole concept of planning for such a summit is an afterthought for Trump. He is the master of the deal and as such, he needs no preparations. The fact that he walked away from this bad deal was about his image. He would have looked a lot worse if he had said yes to Kim and the whole world would have known it. So unprepared and perhaps distracted by domestic issues he was a bit more cautious and/or listened to his advisors instead of making the usual Trump blunders. This turned out well for now, but I give little to no credit to Trump.
23
@Paul Raffeld
The problem is that EVERYONE knows that Trump is a terrible deal maker.
That is why he lost so many businesses.
He is a "master of the deal " on TV Shows only.
A profoundly notable gulf in most international relations is evident here. In the past, when US and other Western nations had more center-of-the-road policies and politics, the ‘dictator-for-life’ and party controlled nations such as USSR, Vietnam, China, Saudi, Arabia, Syria and NK ( even add Afghanistan and Myanmar de facto ) needed to come to the table because the changes in Western heads of state would not re-alter the opposing nation’s diplomacy so much. The constancy of NATO helped this effect then and more important now as a coalesced diplomatic front wrapped in a military alliance. However, nowadays, an Al-Assad, MBS, Xi, Kim understand the winds of change concerning posture and purpose in the Democratic capitals is always blowing and shifting- the long term installed leaders often hunker down, knowing the Westerners will be a carrousel of presidential and prime minister faces. They are reluctant to deal short term and risk volte-face. Intransigence , whether about nukes or human rights is an asset. Really the only consistency in the West in this century has been Merkel as the German system has allowed Chancellor longer administrations.
12
@Will Eigo
I think you make a good point. Other Presidents were largely trusted at times like this because there was no doubt where they stood with our other alliances. Trump has destroyed that trust.
3
@Rick. Appreciate your appreciation. I take it deeper and wider than an untrustworthy current president. It could be France or Britain or Australia too. And it considers congresses and parliaments. The bigger biennial swings in a polarized US Congress can leave even a true stable genius president hamstrung since treaties, budgets and even diplomatic confirmations must run through legislative branch which in current times is thornier and more erratic than ever before. British Parliament much the same. Worth mention that many NATO nations are influx internally too, that can later lead to external inconsistencies - Poland, Hungary, Italy especially. If Trump signed a treaty, Pelosi would need to back it. Function / Dysfunction junction.
1
@Will Eigo
Yes, I realize you were making a bigger point, but Trump's erratic nature and willingness to throw anyone and any existing treaty under the bus at any time has only made matters worse.
Trump's goal was to dangle the golden carrot of new Vietnamese prosperity in front of Kim, hoping he would want the same for N. Korea, in exchange for complete and verifiable de-nuclearization. Sounds like it could have been win-win all around, not just for N. Korea, but for all the regional players. An admirable goal, for sure, but such deals do not materialize as a result of one nice dinner or handshake, or even one meeting. Our self-ordained 'master deal maker' has clearly lost his touch, or more likely, never had it at all.
16
I think Kim would like a new age with economic prosperity. But he would want it with Kim family intact. He must know that loosened trade is a double edge deal where the citizens get a fillip of freedom that entails more than spending power, often speech and political activism too. Load that with a loss of nuclear option puts the long term prospects of the Kim regime in jeopardy. Only an extremely complex arrangement, never yet seen on the table between West and NK, would satisfy Kim’s worries to ensure the dynasty.
12
@Karekin
It's not over yet. These claims of failure are premature.
1
@AACNY
Well OBVIOUSLY it's not over yet; real diplomacy takes real time, not just TV time. But so far, he has basically wasted that time on photo ops and window dressing. Which is what he IS.
3
His approach to politics is like a business deal. Business deals are easy, does it make a profit for both parties. Political deals have layers of nuance. That would mean he would need to study and decide which of the myriad of layers of interests benefits both parties and to what extent it is acceptable to each. This is way over his pay grade. How about those SAT scores and college grades. Let's see his base line for solving problems when he is on his own.
19
Excellent commentary. There is bizarre theater going on here - when Mr. Kristof mentioned Reagan's summit in 1986, it made me realize that both POTUS and those around him are attempting to "fake it until they make it" - creating dramatic illusions of power based off of their idea of what that looks like.
POTUS's time as the lead actor in "The Apprentice" is very telling in this regard - he rarely prepared for the final scene, and often editing magic needed to be done to justify his decision. The accoutrements of wealth were also on display, but it was a poor man's idea of how the rich live - golden toilets and all. A terrible businessman, playing the role of a successful one. Now, we see this play out again on the world stage.
75
@DMH Fair point. Maybe Mark Burnett will run this time around.
2
"Collapse"? "Failure"? These are premature assessments. Walking away is but one step in a long process. The need to see Trump fail is now on full display.
7
@AACNY
I don't need to see Trump fail but he fails so much it's hard to miss.
Before the summit, Trump said: "I thought the first summit was a great success and I hope this one hopefully will be equal or greater than the first."
And he came away with nothing. That is the definition of failure.
95
@W. Freen
True, his critics see nothing but failure. That's the point. Their viewpoint exists in a world separate and apart from actual events.
2
@AACNY
Well, you're kind of correct but Trump brought it on himself.
If he hadn't spent his life shooting off his mouth about what a great deal-maker and negotiator he is, even with all evidence to the contrary, it would be easy to blame the meeting's failure on Kim's recalcitrance.
But Trump is such a gasbag, an incompetent blowhard to the max, that I'll admit his deal-making failures give me a little tickle of satisfaction. And his failures are so predictable and so regular that I'm being tickled constantly.
4
Yes it was the right decision to walk. But the fact that our President flew 10,000 miles to find out what pre-conference negotiators could have discovered would have saved him and the country the embarrassment.
Hopefully, our little contretemps with Rocket Man has ended, and we can now turn our immense diplomatic muscle to pressing matters such as our relationships with China, Russia, and re-engaging in the Middle East.
(I'm not holding my breath.)
123
Unfortunately, Kim Jong Un still holds the better cards.
He can resume testing of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles until he has a nuclear-tipped ICBM that can reliably reach the U.S.
If he really wants to turn up the heat, he can begin meeting with other countries that might be interested in his technology. Perhaps the leaders of Iran and Venezuela will visit North Korea shortly.
What can the U.S. do about it? Nothing much.
We’re not going to use military force to stop them.
Maybe we just wait them out and hope that the sanctions eventually force them back to the table? Sanctions haven’t worked for 20 years and won’t work now.
Yes, there is a time to walk away from the table. But unless you have the stronger position, you’ll be quickly walking back to the table.
3
Right - "North Korea is an otherwise unimportant country." That, in itself, is the reason Kim will never really give up all his nukes. Look how important he is now - the leader of the world's only "superpower" flies 15 hours in order to meet with him. If he doesn't get what he wants, he can rattle the whole world's cage by threats or a missile test. What brutal dictator would give that up?
For once, Trump showed a little sense. From here, we'll see.
17
I'm no expert; however, I can distinguish diplomacy from fakery. Cohen testimony ends, Korean Photo-Op wraps up. Kim knows the other side is eager to get back to the tweeting table.
3
2 years, maybe 6... Kim will be in negotiations with a different person. And sadly that is a consequence of Trump's disregard for traditional diplomatic negotiations. Our interlocutors see themselves in negotiations with a person temporarily in the Oval Office, rather than in negotiations with The United States. Considering just how politically divided we are, those interlocutors in vital negotiations may actually have the right of it.
7
The conscious decision by the House Democrats, led by Elijah Cummings, to undermine a President by staging a hearing while a President was engaged in delicate negotiations overseas on a very serious international issue will have repercussions in years to come.
It used to be that differences between Americans stopped at the water's edge.
No more. The House Democrats would rather encourage American international failure than success. All for political gain.
Mr. Cummings, our enemies took comfort in what you did yesterday. Your lack of patriotism is appalling.
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@Frank
Be serious. Trump should not have gone to North Korea again. No other American President would have gone without advance negotiators having already achieved the framework of a deal.
Trump is an idiot. He probably only went to receive his new instructions from Lavrov and distract attention from the Cohen hearings.
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@Frank I agree with your sentiment and utterly disagree with your defense of a man who spent several years undermining his predecessor at every opportunity. At practically every turn, indeed DJT seeks to undermine the work of former presidents and Barack Obama in particular both ashore and abroad. Save your umbrage for a more worthy cause.
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@Frank
One constant is democratic overreach. They are just stiffening the resolve of anyone who isn't heavily invested in the president's failure.
2
As someone taking pleasure in the Cohen hearing, I very much regret Trump's set back in Saigon. I think he has made great strides with his unconventional and idiosynchratic efforts and should be praised for bringing a resolution of the crisis this close. The crisis is in large part a manufactured one by both parties. What we tolerate in India, Pakistan, and Israel--three equalably states-we see as an existential threat in North Korea. We tend to blame it on Kim alone. He is an easy target. But we fail to credit or understand any complexity in the North Korean state's history and internal politics that contribute to his stance. We fail to see how our own politics and history contribute to our own lack of flexibility as well. The news isnt fake but it is often over simplified.
10
This isn't the first time an American president chose to walk away rather than take any scraps in order to claim victory and it won't be the last. The key difference is that until Donald J. Trump was elected America always had a fully developed adult as president. Today, the real America is saddled with a high school bully with a third grader's temperament who never has and never will take responsibility for his setbacks and failures. Look for a series of tweet storms blaming everyone but himself for having to walk away.
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Hanging over all this is the shadow of our unilaterally renouncing our multi-party treaty with Iran and our continued threats to them. The word of the US President is not as valuable as it once was and the credibility of the USA is downgraded. Why would Kim disarm if there is no guarantee that the treaty would not be abrogated?
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Involving regional players, is very important. South Korea, China being immediate neighbors, Japan sharing chunk of history, should all have a place in the negotiations multilaterally. In fact all nuclear powers should be involved to convince North Korea that humanity can no longer afford saber rattling and our resources should be directed towards human nutrition welfare education economics alleviating poverty. While a huge population of North Korea languishes in hunger starvation poverty depravation the country should direct its limited resources to uplift its citizens’ health and well being, as a priority. Then it can talk big display and flaunt itself as a nuclear power.
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For years there were 6 party talks that included the countries you mentioned, plus Russia. They ended in tears.
@expat, we do know that the US is not always the most bright when it comes to foresight and vision. Repeatedly it has shown the world that its warmongering is misplaced, that it has chosen falsehood to advance its interests, most recently Iraq war, for which humanity is paying heavily, generations have been hurt disabled displaced because of America's policies driven by greed power oil anti muslim anger when convenient. The enemy is always out there, some nation or the other is always designated axis of evil and then the military industry complex which involves defense industries, ramps up its game.
1
The art of the deal isn’t quite as easy in international diplomacy where you can’t just not pay people and threaten them with lawsuits or a declaration of bankruptcy.
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@Jeff I think they've already figured out just how "bankrupt" Trump is.
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@Jeff
So true! In any case he should fire Pompeo and Bolton !!
2
I wonder of the Cohen hearings had some influence on the Trump-Kim meeting. Kim, seeing that Trump's domestic issues were seriously undermining his presidency, may have decided to go for broke believing that Trump would be desperate enough to try to salvage his presidency by agreeing to anything Kim offered. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.
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More likely that Trump was so upset by what Michael Cohen said in his testimony that Trump just decided to kick whatever dog was closest. He couldn't even finish the summit. This is a man with zero impulse control. Remember that he has the nuclear codes and could launch nuclear weapons at a moment's notice. But for some reason we're more apprehensive about North Korea.
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Kim had nothing to lose, Trump the opposite.
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@Dr. OutreAmour
Yes, I was wondering the same thing. Kim knew what was going on with the Cohen testimony so he figured, what the heck, ask for the moon. Trump was so upset, he might have figured he'd give away the farm.....
2
A modest proposal: the way to achieve change in North Korea is to take in North Korean refugees, as many as are able to leave. That likely requires coordination with China. Call it the East German solution.
I'll concede that getting China on board is highly unlikely. But accepting refugees, and accepting the principle that all human beings should be free to live wherever they wish, is the solution to many of the world's current problems.
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@PNBlanco And, say, broadcast the differences between the North and South Koreas into North Korea.
And, we have done this for 50 years, except that the refugees go to South Korea. Unfortunately, the citizens / slaves of the North Korean dictator are, in effect, in jail, forbidden to leave on pain of death, being worked to death, and torture / imprisonment. Not only of themselves, but also of family members who may be left behind.
1
Trump hates refugees and wants to reduce the number we receive each year to zero, but more importantly, South Korea is already accepting every defector from North Korea who makes it past the DMZ.
If you are suggesting that China open its borders and hand off any defecting North Koreans to the United States, that is surely the quickest way to start a nuclear war with North Korea. South Korea would be utterly devastated, Japan may get some of the splash, and we would have a real prospect of North Korean nuclear weapons delivered to the United States by missile or hidden in a cargo ship.
Also, China exploits North Koreans as an even cheaper labor source than their own people, because Kim treats them as chattel. Why would Xi disadvantage himself like that? China doesn't care about human rights any more than North Korea. They also don't want any disruption of North Korea because they are fearful that a collapse of Kim's regime would result in millions of refugees streaming across the border.
What would this change in North Korea look like? The people rising up to confront Kim with mass protests? That would be met with slaughter worse than anything the Chinese did in Tiananmen Square. Generals banding together to depose Kim? He murders even his closest relatives at the faintest hint of disloyalty, real or imagined. Even if they succeeded we would then have a military dictatorship in North Korea run by new villains who need nukes to survive.
Aside from those quibbles, good plan.
The most illuminating revelation over the last 24 hours? Trump should have taken Cohen to the White House. His bad negotiating skills were on display in Vietnam, but they were also on display in Washington as well. I have no doubt that in this instance the 'kids' are telling the truth when they say that Cohen begged to be in Washington. Trump leaving him behind was a colossal mistake. There are lots of small offices in the White House that Cohen could have fit in, and he should be there to this day. Leaving him behind to the likes of Danny Detush was very bad negotiating skills.
23
President Trump needs to come to the realization that the "negotiation" techniques that worked for him in business do not translate to the world stage.
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@sunny. Differ: cheating, stiffing, double dealing, threatening and above all, lying, do work in international affairs as well as in business. Trump is successful in neither sphere.
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@Sunny: This is a person who burned through his father's generous gifts and bequest. He doesn't honor his contracts, pay his employees (including his lawyers -- his lawyers!) He tries to con the gullible into believing his multiple bankruptcies are evidence of his acumen. It is too much of a stretch to say his techniques "worked" in business. He was a miserable failure there as he is in politics.
1
One of the Times’ other article quotes Trump as saying, after the talks collapsed, that he “could have signed a deal, but that Pompeo was happy with its terms.” Does that mean that Pompeo prevailed on Trump (perhaps distracted by Cohen’s testimony) to walk away from making a disastrous concession? If so, this pivotal point needs to be clarified and emphasized.
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@J.Since when has Trump been concerned about making anyone but himself happy? No, he's just shifting the blame for the collapsed talks, the result of his really bad negotiating skills, on someone else. Sorta like Napoleon's cold at Borodino.
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@J. Yes, I'm amazed Trump resisted huge temptation (Nobel Peace Prize) to sign a deal. Did he consult his Fox friends? Did they threaten to desert him? I'd like to know more.
There can't be a 'new deal' when one of the parties has completely ignored what they were supposed to do under the previous 'deal'; even Un-indicted Co-conspirator 45* recognized he was being played in such a situation.
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There can't be a 'new deal' when one of the parties is an autocratic man-child bent on holding his country hostage in an effort to aggrandize his personal profile on the world stage. And the other is the dictator of North Korea.
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@Ray Harper - Indeed there shouldn't be.
It is a measure of how deeply corrupted GOP'ers are that they have not acted to pre-empt Clear & Present Danger 45* from ever getting into a room or onto a stage with such vermin as NK's dictator, following Mayhem 45*'s Putin kowtowing in Helsinki.
Such a loose cannon should not be allowed in front of a hot mic on the world stage, much less in nuclear negotiations where no one can predict what will spill out of his pie-hole.
3