Trump’s Approach to Diplomacy Hits a Snag in North Korean Summit

WSJ ^ | Feb 28, 2019 | MICHAEL R. GORDON

[upchuck]

The Hanoi summit that President Trump held with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a roller-coaster ride that vividly illustrated the pluses and pitfalls of Mr. Trump’s top-down style of diplomacy.

Over two days, Mr. Trump boasted of the personal chemistry he believes he has established with the North Korean dictator and voiced confidence that together they could achieve a breakthrough that would turn isolated North Korea into a thriving non-nuclear state.

But the geniality wasn’t enough to overcome the fundamentally different expectations of what steps North Korea would need to take to obtain major sanctions relief.

Having failed to significantly narrow the gaps at lower levels, Mr. Trump gambled that his rapport with Mr. Kim would lead in Hanoi to the North’s first tangible steps toward denuclearization.

The result was a high-profile impasse and uncertainty over whether Washington and Pyongyang had hit a temporary bump in the road or struck a brick wall that would stymie future progress.

“This really speaks to the lack of preparation,” said Joseph Yun, the former State Department envoy for North Korean issues. “You cannot draft a joint statement out of nothing. They never quite got around to building a consensus around sanctions, and that led to the deadlock.”

Mr. Trump has had a proclivity to personalize the North Korean issue since taking office. When relations between the two nations were tense and Pyongyang was conducting missile tests, Mr. Trump mocked Mr. Kim as “rocket man” and warned that his military buildup could end up as a suicide mission.

But since the June summit in Singapore, Mr. Trump has cast Mr. Kim as a bold leader who is determined to achieve a better economic future for his country. The president’s praise of Mr. Kim has been so generous that on Thursday Mr. Trump ventured the North Korean leader hadn’t been aware of the abuse of Otto Warmbier, the American student who died after being jailed in North Korea for more than a year.

“He tells me that he didn’t know about it,” Mr. Trump told a news conference Thursday, referring to Mr. Kim. “I will take him at his word.”

Some experts have seen merit in Mr. Trump’s approach, saying that in a totalitarian society like North Korea, Mr. Trump has been dealing with the one person empowered to make important decisions on the country’s nuclear potential and relations with the West.

But others say that having a channel to the North Korean leadership isn’t sufficient if the two sides’ interests aren’t aligned or at least partially bridged by preparatory talks.

For months, the North has signaled that it is willing to close all or key parts of the Yongbyon nuclear complex in exchange for a U.S. decision to lift major economic sanctions. The U.S. has signaled that it is looking for more: The dismantlement of clandestine facilities used to enrich uranium and other hidden atomic sites and not just the shuttering of Yongbyon.

If the two sides had opted for the traditional bottom-up approach to diplomacy, their diplomats would have worked to close the divide and only arranged for a summit when they appeared to be within striking distance of an agreement.

However, U.S. and North Korean diplomats have had only intermittent meetings since the June summit, and both sides bet they would be more successful by pressing their case at another summit.

Mr. Kim calculated that Mr. Trump would be more flexible in agreeing to lift sanctions than his subordinates. Mr. Trump, for his part, assumed that he was the best person to pursue the art of the nuclear deal.

As the summit approached, there was speculation that progress could be made that might lead to the opening of liaison offices, a peace declaration and at least some tangible denuclearization steps on the part of the North.

The White House’s confidence going into the Hanoi meeting was running so high that it announced on Wednesday night the two leaders would sign a “joint agreement” on Thursday afternoon.

“Obviously a blunder by both sides,” Gary Samore, who served as the senior National Security Council official on weapons of mass destruction issues for President Obama, wrote in an email. “Failure is a good lesson for both sides that summits need to be prepared in advance.”

Flying to his next stop in Manila, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vigorously defended Mr. Trump’s top-level approach in Hanoi while insisting the administration had also pursued its denuclearization demands at lower levels before the summit.

“When you are dealing with a country that is of the nature of North Korea, it is often the case that only the most senior levels have the capacity to make those important decisions,” Mr. Pompeo said.

“We got some of them on this trip,” he added without providing details on which decisions were made. “But you don’t know which one you are actually going to get until the two leaders have a chance to get together.”

The two sides plan to keep talking, Mr. Pompeo indicated, but when and at what level they will next engage is unclear.

Some former U.S. officials were philosophical about the setback in Hanoi, saying that the summit had enabled the two sides to test each other’s limits without slamming the door on future diplomacy. The U.S., they said, had pressed to see how far Pyongyang would go on denuclearization while the North Koreans pushed to see how far Washington was prepared to go on removing sanctions.

“This was a necessary part of the bargaining process,” said Robert Einhorn, a former senior State Department official who negotiated with North Korea on its missile programs. “But it would have been much better to do this at the professional level before scheduling a high-stakes summit meeting.”

[upchuck]

Interesting comments and ideas from various officials, ex-officials, etc.

[JayGalt]

Interesting in that they expose these individuals as partisan nincompoops.

[Col Frank Slade]

Trump sent a clear message to both Kim and China.

[1Old Pro]

“This really speaks to the lack of preparation,” said Joseph Yun, the former State Department envoy for North Korean issues

Once I see "former" I know the person has an axe to grind and anything they say is inaccurate and typically self serving.

[Trump.Deplorable]

Fat boy is hoping for a better deal with the Democrats and the ChiComs

So I think he is trying to delay delay delay until Trump is out

That is what I am thinking here

Democrats take over and Fat Boy gets tons of free food, weapons, heck even uranium and all he had to do was make an empty threat. Back to the “good old days” so to speak

[cuban leaf]

The good news is that if all else fails, we do have the big button and it actually works. ;)

[Carriage Hill]

DemonkkkRAT Talking Points, written by a demonkkkRAT party scribe and hack.

[Captain Peter Blood]

My take is that Kim overplayed his hand and Trump just did what Reagan did with Gorbachev and just pulled the plug on the Summit and left. Kim got the message now and if he trult wants to come out of the cold then he will have to put up or shut up.

[Dacula]

Art of the Deal.

Rocket-man has never negotiated with a a real businessman. I never really expected much to come from this meeting. There were no talking points sent out to the media

[RightGuy]

Interesting comments? BS!

Hey, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions - still in place, starving the Norks. Time is on our side.

All is good.

[chuckee]

The other option Trump had when he met resistance from a hard core adversary to a denuclearization deal was to follow the lead of a prior administration and lift sanctions while releasing 100 billion dollars to the adversary along with a billion in cash on a palette and agree that they can start building a nuclear program 10 years after the agreement was signed and after you are out of office. And then wrap it up with a nice bow and sell it with the assistance of the media misnomered as a “peace” agreement. Sometimes the best course of action is not an agreement at any cost but just to walk away until economic pressures make it a bit more unbearable for the other side. Time for Trump to pressure sanctions breaking China as part of trade negotiations that part of the deal will be China will be penalized with tariffs if they break sanctions on NK
until they correct their behavior.

[wbarmy]

I have no doubt that Mr. Gordon had another article prepared saying how unprepared Trump was and was forced to sign an agreement giving away our options on the Korean peninsula. No matter which outcome occurred, they would be saying how stupid and unprepared President Trump was for this meeting.

President Trump is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, and stupid no matter what.

[Williams]

I think the plan of this summit is in plain sight. Trump kept saying he wasn’t concerned about a fast result. He knew this summit was not to reach a deal. We knew NK was concealing nuclear sites and this summit was to tell them we know. Trump said as much. When NK was not willing to give up those sites on the spot, the summit ended and NK will need to reassess its’s position.

Contrary to the silly Fox commentators drooling over the great “body language” etc, it was obvious something was happening behind the scenes. Trump was calm and in control, Kim looked wary. The president stated we confronted them about their secret sites. We did not expect a deal this time. As usual, the media is too mechanical to listen to what is being said.

[Bratch]

No Deal – President Trump Holds a Press Conference Prior to Departing Hanoi, Vietnam…

Posted on February 28, 2019 by sundance

Despite several positive and remarkable comments from Kim Jong-un, President Donald Trump and the North Korean Chairman could not come to a substantive agreement after two days of negotiations on the process to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

During a press conference prior to departing Hanoi, Vietnam, President Trump cited two issues:

1. A North Korean demand for the immediate removal of all multinational economic sanctions; and
2. The unwillingness of North Korea to be fulsome about their missile and nuclear locations. 

WATCH:

BREAKING 🔴 President Trump URGENT Press Conference at Hanoi Vietnam Summit

Additional Thoughts:

In the backdrop of the Hanoi summit, and as U.S-China trade negotiations continue, the Trump administration suspended the implementation of the March 1st tariff increase on Chinese goods.  Unfortunately, attaining this goal may have empowered a cunning Chairman Xi Jinping to influence the demands of DPRK Chairman Kim.

A covert influence connection will become clear if President Trump now takes an even more firm trade and tariff position toward China. We’ll keep watching closely.

Chairman Xi may have won this round, but we can expect an angered and strategic President Trump to hit back twice as hard.

In this dance with the dragon President Trump cannot simply reverse the tariff suspension, that approach would be too obvious.  Instead my suggestion would be to look for signs of the U.S. reviewing Chinese violations of the North Korea sanctions.

A key indicator will be if over the next several weeks, we see the U.S. Treasury and/or Commerce Department beginning to point out those who are violating the sanctions against North Korea.

It’s an open secret that China is the largest violator; but President Trump has been giving everyone a pass due to progress on both the China trade and DPRK nuclear talks.

With a set-back in the overall process, and with China playing games, we might just see a renewed focus on U.S. sanction enforcement, specifically targeting China.

What we will not see is President Trump acquiescing to China on trade and economics simply to get Kim Jong-un away from Beijing’s clutches.  That massive ransom payment falls too heavily, and too exclusively, on the United States – while regional allies gain the benefits of peace on the back of a lessened U.S. economy.

That sh!t deal wouldn’t pass the MAGAnomic ‘America First’ test; not even close.

That exact conversation is what President Trump likely will be explaining to South Korean President Moon Jae-in (the Asian Obama), and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the flight home.  THAT EXACT CONVERSATION!

[Irish Eyes]

I believe that your post is correct.

[newzjunkey]

I don't doubt such an article was ready from all fake news media.

NK was always going to be described as a failure for Trump no matter what happened.

I'm disappointed Trump didn't get what he wanted but I'm pleased he walked away rather than be a Neville Chamberlain ("Peace in our Time" with Hitler) or Obama (Iran deal).

[pgyanke]

I blame the Democrats and the MSM... but I repeat myself. The Cohen hearings are just the latest hope given to China and NK that they won’t have to deal with Trump much longer. Therefore... wait for a better deal from the politics-as-usual crowd.

[SENTINEL]

That time Reagan won the cold war by WALKING OUT

In 1986, Rolling Stone claimed Reagan "flubbed" the Reykjavik summit

Some things never change.

[old curmudgeon]

Either a fool or a never Trumper.

In either case, a fool.

First, you buy a Coke at 711 instantly.

You do not buy a major piece of real estate or a manufacturing facility in a five minute sit-down. It takes time and sometimes endless negotiation.

Negotiating with N. Korea is not a five minute sit down. Only a fool with think so.

[butlerweave]

Move to plan ? ,remove the Kim Family ,LOL