Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un on Korean TV. Reuters
After President Trump canceled the June 12th summit in Singapore, North Korea has said they are still open to talks and a "Trump-style solution". Reuters. President Trump canceled the summit after threats from the North Korean government and harsh statements about Vice President Mike Pence. Pence compared North Korea to Libya and said that if the summit didn't happen, Kim Jong Un could end up like Momar Qadaffi, who was raped and murdered by his own people. The North Korean government said they are still open to talks.
My Comment:
A disappointing event to be sure. It really looked like the North Korea/United States summit would happen. It very well still might, but it doesn't look like it will be happening in a couple of weeks. Things have obviously not gone well.
So why did Trump back out? The North Koreans changed their tune. Instead of the conciliatory and respectful way they had been acting they started to attack Mike Pence and threatened to pull out of the meeting. That was signaling that they weren't taking the summit as seriously as they should. Trump wants a nuke-free Korean Peninsula and he won't settle for anything else. If the North Koreans were signaling that wouldn't happen, there was little point in meeting with Kim.
As an aside, I don't think Mike Pence's statement about Qadaffi was a wise one. Considering what happened to him and the context the last thing we need to remind Kim of was his fate. Though such a fate is possible for Kim it is still a bad idea to remind him of what happened in Libya.
Why? Because we betrayed Qadaffi. Well, more specifically, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did. Qadaffi was a bad man, to be sure, but he gave up his weapons of mass destruction and gave up terrorism. He was doing his part to try and join the international community. And how did Obama and Clinton repay him? By bombing his country and allowing him to be raped to death. Reminding Kim Jong Un that could be his own fate if a deal is made and the next US president decides to invade is a pretty big incentive to not give up North Korea's nuclear arms. It was a dumb move but not for the reason people might think.
I do think that the threat is being overplayed here. I don't think that diplomacy has failed quite yet. Indeed, I think that Trump's behavior is fairly predictable. In his book, Art of the Deal Trump stressed the importance of walking away when you can't get a good deal. Doing so puts you into a position of power when negotiations begin again. Put into that context, Trump's behavior here isn't surprising. I'd say it's even predictable.
Kim Jong Un knows this. He has read Art of the Deal as Dennis Rodman, of all people, gave it to him as a gift. I am guessing the Kim will be scrambling to get back into negotiations and open up another summit. And I am betting it will happen sooner rather than later.
This seems very obvious from the wording of their North Korean governments statement. They are already saying that they are still open to negotiation and aren't acting like they are angry. There is a very good chance that they will attempt to salvage this meeting. If the deal was over completely they would be threatening war. So far that doesn't seem to be the case.
As for me, I am still hopeful that the meeting will happen. The other regional powers in the area are invested now and China, South Korea and Japan will be pressuring Kim to back down and rejoin the meeting. Both sides have left communication channels open and I think that there is a good chance that a deal will be eventually be made. I view this as more as a temporary setback than anything else.
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