South Korea's announcement that Donald Trump has agreed to meet Kim Jong Un took the world by surprise. Photo / AP
South Korea's announcement that Donald Trump has agreed to meet Kim Jong Un took the world by surprise. Photo / AP
For the moment, at least, it appears to be a clear-cut victory - the biggest foreign policy win of his young Administration. United States President Donald Trump has brought his arch-nemesis, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a.k.a "Little Rocket Man", to the table to negotiate away his nuclear arsenal.
Optimists declared a major breakthrough. Even pessimists acknowledged that Trump's hard line against Pyongyang, after decades of less forceful US effort, played a significant role in moving one of the world's most vexing and threatening problems in a potentially positive direction. But in the afterglow of the surprise announcement yesterday that Trump has agreed to meet Kim by the end of May, questions were fast and furious.
Were direct talks between Kim and Trump, two notably volatile leaders who have traded public insults for more than a year, the best way to start what are sure to be complicated negotiations? Was the Administration, whose thin bench of experienced experts seems to be growing slimmer by the day, ready to face those wily and untrustworthy North Koreans?
By some assessments, this is really a victory for Kim, who for years has sought proof of his status and North Korea's power by dangling the offer of leader-to-leader talks with the US.
Some analysts said it remains unclear what Trump is prepared to put on the table opposite Kim's apparent offer to stop testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and discuss denuclearisation.
"Sanctions? Normalisation? Peace treaty?" tweeted Victor Cha, the expert who was once Trump's choice as ambassador to South Korea, before he voiced concern that the White House was contemplating a pre-emptive military strike against Pyongyang.
According to a senior Administration official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity, the answer is not very much.
There would be no reward for talks themselves, the official said. Trump would expect a dismantled nuclear weapons programme, with complete "verification", and "will settle for nothing less".
But "President Trump has a reputation for making deals", the official added. "Kim Jong Un is the one person able to make decisions in their uniquely totalitarian system and so it made sense to accept the invitation with the one person who can make decisions instead of repeating the long slog of the past."
Trump has a vibrant track record of surprise announcements that have distracted attention, at least temporarily, from concern over tariffs and border walls and the growing threat to his presidency posed by the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
At the same time, he has claimed a string of successes over the past 14 months that others have challenged as lacking a strategy for long-term sustainability, from the currently robust economy to the defeat of Isis (Islamic State) in Iraq and Syria.
The North Korea gambit may be his highest-wire act of all.
"A Trump-Kim summit is a major diplomatic gamble," tweeted Richard Fontaine, president of the Centre for New American Security. "But let's see if it actually comes off. Recall that yesterday, we were set to impose steel tariffs on Canada." Trump yesterday announced exemptions from tariffs for Canada.
Among experts, there were widely divergent views of what had happened, and why, and what the risks were.
"Beyond the initial shock value of the invitation from Kim Jong Un to Trump," and Trump's acceptance, "I think the real underlying questions are still what are they going to negotiate," said Lisa Collins, a fellow with the Korea Chair at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "Two months doesn't give working-level officials much time to pull things together. It's certainly the start of talks. Whether or not it's a true breakthrough in terms of change in North Korea's calculus, I'm still a little sceptical."
President Donald Trump has accepted an offer of a summit from the North Korean leader and will meet with Kim Jong Un by May. Photo / AP
Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, said it was "absolutely right to extend the nuclear and missile test pause" declared by Pyongyang during talks last week with the Seoul Government. "It will help repair ties with South Korea and keeps us back from the brink of war. "Unfortunately," Mount said, "denuclearisation is a distant fantasy."
The Administration "has not equipped itself for success. They have not laid the groundwork for credibility in talks [and] lack leadership with experience in international negotiation. In accepting the invitation outright, Trump has already lost much of his leverage."
The "better play", he said, "is to start by offering a credible plan to stabilise the peninsula and halt nuclear and missile tests sustainably, and then build out to a more ambitious agreement."
Others were less sceptical. Robert Carlin, who has led US delegations to North Korea and served in various senior intelligence and diplomatic roles during previous outreaches to Pyongyang, cited North Korean statements over the years that indicated its nuclear weapons programme was largely developed as leverage to gain economic stability.
In a seminal statement in March 2013, Carlin recalled, Kim said North Korea's nuclear policy would proceed rapidly to "blunt the American threat and create a peaceful environment so that we can concentrate on the economy", he said. "This is his victory.
"We can't push them around. They do have nuclear weapons," Carlin said. But "they do have a leader who wants to pivot to the economy. Let's test that. Let's see if we can use [Kim's] own momentum, like jujitsu, to help accomplish what we want."
From threats of destruction to possible summit in little over a year
United States President Donald Trump has accepted an offer to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before the end of May. It is a stunning turn of events after a year of heated verbal warfare that included crude insults and mutual threats of nuclear attacks. It remains to be seen whether a summit will take place or lead to a meaningful breakthrough, but here's a look at recent events:
January 1, 2017 Kim Jong Un says in a New Year's address that preparations for launching an intercontinental ballistic missile have "reached the final stage".
Jan 2 President-elect Donald Trump tweets, "North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the US. It won't happen!"
July 4 North Korea conducts its first flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-14, which Kim calls the North's "package of gifts" for the US Independence Day.
July 28 A second Hwasong-14 is launched with an estimated range reaching into the US mainland, including cities such as Chicago.
August 9 Trump says North Korea had best not make more threats or "they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen". North Korea hours later announces a plan to launch a salvo of missiles toward the US territory of Guam, a major military hub in the Pacific.
Aug 29 An intermediate-range North Korean missile flies over Japan and plunges into the northern Pacific.
September 3 North Korea carries out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date, saying it was a hydrogen bomb designed for use on ICBMs.
Sept 19 Trump tells the UN General Assembly that the US would "totally destroy North Korea" if forced to defend itself or its allies. He refers to Kim as "Rocket Man" and that he's "on a suicide mission for himself".
Sept 22 Kim accuses Trump of "mentally deranged behaviour". He says he will "surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire". November 29 North Korea's third ICBM test demonstrates a potential range that could reach Washington.
January 1, 2018 Kim says in his New Year's address that he has a nuclear button on his desk, but also calls for improved relations with South Korea and suggests sending a delegation to the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Trump soon responds that he has a bigger and more powerful nuclear button, "and my Button works!"
Jan 9 North and South Korean officials meet in the border village of Panmunjom, and agree on North Korea sending athletes and delegates to the Olympics.
February 9 Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, becomes the first member of North Korea's ruling family to visit the South since the end of the Korean War. She attends the Olympics opening ceremony and later tells South Korean President Moon Jae In her brother desires to meet Moon in a summit soon.
March 7 After visiting Kim in Pyongyang, South Korean presidential national security director Chung Eui Yong says Kim is willing to discuss the fate of his nuclear arsenal with the US and has expressed a readiness to suspend nuclear and missile tests during such talks.
March 9 Trump accepts Kim's invitation to meet by the end of May.
