The second summit with North Korea’s evil leader Kim Jong Un did not go as planned, and was abruptly cut short last night while we were all sleeping:
NY POST – The Vietnam summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was abruptly cut short Thursday after the two leaders could not come to an agreement on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
Both men were expected to sit down for a lunch at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi before taking part in a joint agreement signing ceremony.
But the summit was suddenly called to an end as both teams packed up, got into their respective motorcades and left.
Trump then appeared at a press briefing at 2:20 p.m. local time (2:20 a.m. in New York) and said, “We had a really productive time. We had some options. At this time, we decided not to do any of the options.”
He concluded, “Sometimes, you have to walk.”
According to Fox New, the reason why Trump said “sometimes you have to walk” was over disagreement about sanctions and denuclearization.
Kim Jong Un really wanted the US to drop sanctions against N. Korea, but Trump wasn’t budging on that front.
And the US apparently wanted more denuclearization than what Kim Jong Un was offering:
From what could be gleaned at President Trump’s Thursday news conference in Hanoi, it seemed that his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ultimately failed because both sides stood firm on the matters most important to them. For North Korea it was the lifting of sanctions and for the U.S. it was assuring denuclearization.
It was thought going into Thursday’s meeting between the two leaders that North Korea could be satisfied with a restart of two inter-Korean projects that make money for Pyongyang: an industrial park and a tourist center. Both are based in North Korea and are hard cash-spinners.
But that apparently wasn’t enough. According to President Trump, North Korea wanted the U.S. to lift all of the sanctions enacted against it.
That was never going to happen at this stage. Not even a partial easing of the sanctions, which the North also might have suggested would have involved the U.N. and other bodies.
And even that wouldn’t have happened without substantial denuclearization.
On the denuclearisation front, it was thought that North Korea was going to offer the closing of its Yongbyon facility, an important site that makes plutonium and enriched uranium for bombs as well as tritium for their miniaturization. But it has been “closed” in two past negotiations. There were questions whether North Korea was going to go farther, allowing inspections and actually permanently dismantling the site.
According to Trump’s news conference, the U.S. wanted more. There is at least one, maybe more, uranium enrichment facility beyond Yongbyon. Plus a range of testing and launch sites. And arsenals for weapons. It looks like the U.S. wanted to go farther.
I really didn’t think this second summit was a very good idea in the first place, considering that there’s been so little movement by North Korea towards denuclearization since the first summit almost a year ago.
And it looks like, for now, nothing more will happen since this summit was ended in disagreement.