When Joe Biden was elected president of the United States, he and sichuan fans were equally disappointed. After four years of hard work, the “relationship” was about to change from love to hate. Mr. Biden was clear on North Korea, sharply denouncing Mr. Trump‘s engagement with the country, even referring to it as a “thug.”
In 2017, shortly after Mr. Trump took office, North Korea launched a missile just weeks later, setting off a turbulent year in U.S.-North Korea relations. And in the past four years, the US and North Korea have miraculously gone from threatening each other with nuclear weapons to sending each other love letters? After learning the back story of the three meetings, it can be summed up in two words: impulsive.
On March 8, 2018, a week after the End of the Winter Olympics in South Korea, President Moon Jae-in sent Chung Eui-yong, chief of the National Security Office of the Blue House, to visit the White House on March 8, in order to ease THE US-DPRK relations and facilitate direct talks between the TWO countries. Chung’s purpose that day was simply to meet with Trump’s national security team and cabinet, including national security adviser McMaster, to synchronize north Korea’s commitments to South Korea. But when Mr. Trump learned of the South Korean delegation’s visit to the White House, he temporarily moved his scheduled meeting with Chung to the 8th the next day, and Chung went straight to the Oval Office.
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Chung conveyed to Trump four clear promises, or compromises, from Kim: a commitment to denuclearization; A moratorium on nuclear and missile tests; The U.S. and South Korea military exercises can continue. And one last thing: I really want to see Trump. McMaster, then the national Security adviser, immediately warned Trump: ‘This is North Korea. Watch out for their commitment.’
Trump’s reaction was unexpected: “I’d like to see King. You can just go out and say it.” Trump wanted Chung to issue a statement in the West Wing repeating what he had just said. He instructed McMaster and John Pottinger, then the national security adviser for the Asia-Pacific region, to work with South Korea on drafting the statement.
In a rare moment of impatience, Trump rushed to the White House briefing room and told reporters there would be a “major announcement”. It was trump’s first appearance in the White House briefing room.
An hour later, Chung and two South Korean delegates announced to reporters outside the West Wing under the cover of the night that Kim jong UN had offered to meet with the U.S. president as soon as possible, and Trump had offered to meet before May. North Korea has agreed not to conduct any nuclear or missile tests for the time being, while joint military exercises with South Korea will continue.
Chung made the announcement while Then-SECRETARY of State Rex Tillerson was visiting Ethiopia. Mike Pompeo, the CIA director at the time, was also traveling abroad, and everyone was shocked by the decision. Pompeo immediately held a meeting with his deputy Gina Haspel (now the DIRECTOR of the CIA) and Andy Kim, a former CIA expert on North Korea, to discuss what exactly motivated Trump. Why should the South Korean representative announce this decision? All three had no answers to these questions.
But As America’s most senior expert on North Korea, Andy Kim fully understands north Korea’s demand to meet With Mr. Trump. In December 2000, Clinton considered visiting North Korea, but President-elect George W. Bush did not want Clinton to go, and out of respect for his successor, Clinton canceled the trip. One lesson north Korea has learned is that the American election is held every four years, and any plan can be disrupted in four years, so dealing with the new government as soon as it takes office is the best option.
Mr Trump has been pleased with the overwhelming us media coverage of Mr Trump’s meeting since the big news broke, but Mr McElvin, a former senior director for Asia-Pacific affairs at Barack Obama’s National Security Council, said North Korea would never give up its nuclear weapons. Kim played Moon jae-in, and now he plays Trump.
Singapore Summit
The eventful Singapore Summit was finalised at the Capello Hotel in Singapore on June 12, 2018. This was a business trip that Xiao Wang Yongsheng would never forget. One day before departure, I received a call from the US State Department informing me of an interview with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo the next day. Wang had to change his ticket and flew from the United States to Dubai and then from Dubai to Singapore as soon as the interview was over. Halfway around the world, Wang finally arrived in the muggy Singapore of June.
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Phoenix Singapore reporting team
Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Kim was actually very short, just half a day. The historic handshake, which lasted 12 seconds, took place at 9:05 a.m. local time. Trump later told Woodward: Holy Shit! The cameras in the global media gathering in Singapore have created a wall that even TV personality Donald Trump has never seen in his life.
Mr. Trump’s national security team believes that the shorter the stay and meeting in Singapore, the less time Mr. Trump will have to make concessions to North Korea. Mr Trump sees the Singapore summit as a public relations battle, with success determined not by what is negotiated but by how it is presented. Before the meeting, Mr. Trump told his national Security team that he was ready to sign a communique without substance and declared the meeting a victory at a news conference.
The conversation between Trump and Kim went very well, with Kim urging Trump to scale back the U.S. -South Korean military exercises to ease pressure inside North Korea. Trump and Kim hit it off because he has always viewed military exercises as provocative and a waste of time and money. At a press conference after the meeting, Trump surprised then-DEFENSE Secretary Jim Mattis with the announcement that the U.S. and South Korea would suspend military exercises.
Mattis was deeply disappointed by Trump’s decision. ‘We are showing the outside world how to destroy the United States, how to isolate the United States from its Allies,’ he said later.
But that’s not how Trump sees it. Immediately after the meeting, Mr. Trump tweeted about the summit’s success, saying the North Korean nuclear threat to the United States no longer existed. President Obama has warned that the United States will go to war with North Korea, which is the biggest threat to the United States. That threat is gone, and you can sleep well tonight.
Vietnam summit
Six months after the Singapore summit, u.s.-North Korea talks have made no progress. But as we enter 2019, the frequency of dialogue between the two sides has suddenly increased. Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, visited the White House on January 18 and delivered a personal letter from Kim to Trump. That was followed by a second U.S.-North Korea summit scheduled for Feb. 27 and 28 in Hanoi, Vietnam.
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In an effort to better prepare Trump for the summit, Bolton and other NSA officials on Feb. 12 gave a 45-minute video address in the White House situation Room, describing how North Korea had “deceived” the United States under Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. After three preparatory meetings, Bolton decided he had achieved what he wanted: to get Trump to negotiate without compromising.
A week before the Vietnam summit, U.S. Special envoy for North Korean policy Jan Biegun had begun talks with North Korea in Hanoi. On Feb. 24, Mr. Bigan presented north Korea with a draft of a U.S. -North Korean statement that had not been reviewed by the White House, and Mr. Bolton fumed that the statement had been drafted entirely on North Korea’s behalf and that the United States had received nothing in return. America’s State Department, which is negotiating with North Korea, is keen to lock in a joint statement before the 27th summit.
And just before Mr Trump met Mr Bigan at the summit, he had little recollection of the North Korea policy envoy. On The morning of The 27th, Mr Trump told his team that there were three possibilities for the Vietnam summit: a major deal; Make small agreements; Walk away from the negotiating table. Then Mr. Trump added that a small deal might not work because the United States would not ease sanctions; A major deal is now unlikely because of North Korea’s unwillingness to give up its nuclear weapons. So walking away from the negotiating table became the most likely option.
Wang’s Phoenix reporting team in Hanoi, Vietnam
We start at six in the morning and live on the Vietnamese noodles from the roadside flies’ restaurants
In the run-up to the summit, bad news followed. Mulvaney, then White House chief of staff, told Bolton and Pompeo that Trump was “up in the air” over a report published in Time magazine on 27 that Trump was not receiving intelligence briefings. On the other hand, in the NATION’s capital, there was a flurry of media coverage about Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Cohn testifying before Congress against him. Mr. Trump seems to have begun to get a little distracted.
On the evening of 27th, the US and the DPRK held a 3+3 dinner. According to the DPRK’s request, Bolton was excluded, so Trump, Pompeo and Mulvaney had dinner with the DPRK. Towards the end of the dinner, Mr Kim offered North Korea to give up its Yongbyon nuclear facility in exchange for lifting all UN sanctions imposed on the country after 2016. Mr. Trump, of course, did not respond. He studiously avoided any substantive discussion during the dinner.
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That night, Trump barely slept, staying up all night to watch Cohen’s blockbuster hearing, so much so that on the morning of the 28th summit, Trump canceled a preparatory meeting with his national Security team. At the time, Bolton was afraid that Trump would be spurred by Cohn to make some major compromises at the SUMMIT to divert domestic attention from Cohn. Of course, if Trump leaves the negotiating table, the summit will fail, which is also a good way to divert media attention.
On the way to the meeting, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo: Is it better to make a deal or walk away from the table? Better to leave, Mr Bolton replied. But how do I explain that to the outside world? Trump asked. Pompeo replied: “The teams met, we made progress, there were no missile tests or nuclear tests, and we will continue to meet in the future.” Pompeo’s words became reality a few hours later.
The summit began at 9 a.m. local time and took a 45-minute break, with Trump and Kim, accompanied by Pompeo and Kim yong-chol, walking and chatting in the hotel atrium. But Kim doesn’t like the heat and humidity outside, so the conversation moves indoors again. An hour later, the two sides took another 30-minute break. Once back in the US lounge, Trump immediately switched on Fox News to watch coverage of the Cohen hearing. Pompeo reported that so far the talks have been similar to last night’s dinner, where North Korea has been emphasizing shutting down yongbyon in exchange for lifting sanctions. Kim, on the other hand, became increasingly frustrated, even angry, at the U.S. intransigence. Mr Trump is equally unhappy because he has made it clear that the summit will not produce the deal he wants.
After the break, the two sides held wide-ranging bilateral talks at 11 o ‘clock. Mr. Trump asked Mr. Kim if he had any new proposals after the break. Mr. Kim replied that he was disappointed that his current proposal was different from any past North Korean leader, but that the United States was still not satisfied. Trump then handed Kim the U.S. document on “denuclearization” and a “vision for a bright future for North Korea” and asked what additional conditions north Korea could attach to compromise. Kim only reiterated to Trump that shutting down Yongbyon would be a huge compromise for North Korea. And Trump pressed on: What more can you offer? Can the US just ease some of the sanctions? But Kim didn’t respond…
So Mr Trump tried to change the subject by asking about the prospect of a unified North and south peninsula. But Kim was not very interested and continued to return to the topic of nuclear facilities and sanctions. So Trump threw the ball to Bolton, don’t you think? Mr. Bolton took the opportunity to escalate the talks, saying the United States needed north Korea to provide a complete list of its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and missile programs. This is the basis for traditional arms-control negotiations, which have historically failed in the absence of a list of weapons.
But Kim refused to be led by the US, and continued to urge the US to implement a “step-by-step” plan of action for action to achieve a comprehensive agreement. Kim also complained that north Korea’s security has no legal basis. What if an American warship came into North Korean waters? “Call me,” Trump replied.
Several rounds later, it was clear to Mr. Trump that the negotiations were deadlocked. He failed to reach any agreement at this meeting. Trump turned to Pompeo and asked him to repeat what he had told him before the meeting: “What we have learned from this meeting is that we have made progress, we know each other better, we trust each other more, we have made real progress.” Bolton’s internal OS at the time was, thank Goodness he didn’t ask me.
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Finally, the two sides made a concluding speech. Kim wanted a joint statement, while Trump initially wanted separate statements from the two sides, then decided not to issue anything because what he wanted was a comprehensive agreement. Kim said again that he had taken out as much as he could. In the absence of a “Hanoi statement”, the two sides could also issue a statement on progress and mention a proposal to close Yongbyon in exchange for sanctions relief. But Mr Trump rejected it out of hand, arguing that such a non-comprehensive deal would be too costly for US politics and could even cost him the 2020 election.
In the end, the meeting ended early and the North Korean delegation left the negotiating table first. Trump, who has been up all night, is physically and mentally exhausted. And there was no appetite, and lunch that day was cancelled. Trump told Pompeo and Bolton to join him for a press conference in the afternoon. But Bolton said no, citing a flight, and Pompeo later muttered to Bolton, ‘You’re lucky.’
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Panmunjom meeting
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea was the most disappointed that the Hanoi summit broke down. A month later, a reluctant Moon visited the White House to try to push ahead with a third U.S.-North Korea summit. When He returned to South Korea, Mr. Moon said, he proposed to the North a third summit between June 12 and July 27, which Mr. Trump readily agreed to, but only if an agreement could be reached before the meeting.
Two weeks later, Then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe came to the White House to offer a completely different view from Moon’s, insisting that sanctions against North Korea should remain in place and that there would be no compromise. “Time is on our side,” Mr Abe stressed. Since then, North Korea has conducted a number of short – and medium-range missile tests, and Mr. Trump has been very low-key in his response.
In late June, Trump traveled to Japan for the G20 summit. During his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump for the first time mentioned that he might meet Kim at Panmunjom because Kim wants to get something done but doesn’t know how to get started. Until then, no one in the US delegation knew that Mr Trump was planning a third meeting with Mr Kim.
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But soon, before Mr. Trump’s own national security team could react, the world would know. Because Trump tweeted that I was leaving Japan for South Korea, and if Kim saw the tweet, I would be willing to shake his hand in the demilitarized zone between The two koreas and say hello? (!)
When Mulvaney showed Bolton Trump’s twitter feed, he looked at each other and was completely taken aback. Later, Mulvaney privately took both Pompeo and Bolton to say that North Korea did not consider Twitter an official invitation and that he was working on one. “I have nothing to say,” Pompeo said. “It’s just total chaos.” Soon after, Mr. Trump signed a formal invitation. The US had originally planned a bilateral meeting, but this time Mr Moon insisted on attending.
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According to Bolton, Trump had only one purpose for the meeting: a photo! To mark the historic moment when a sitting U.S. president met with a North Korean leader in the Demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. North Korea has achieved what it always wanted, and Mr Trump has achieved what he always wanted. Mr Bolton later concluded that Mr Trump was unable to distinguish between his personal interests and the national interest.
The moment of highlight is gone forever
In 2020, Watergate investigative reporter Woodward asked Trump: Are you giving too much back to North Korea? ‘You know what I’ve accomplished?’ Mr. Trump said. Meeting, this is a big deal, I have nothing to lose, sanctions still continue. Do you want me to stay home and read your book and do nothing?
Over the past four years, even as relations between the United States and North Korea have improved, the nuclear threat has grown. The North Korean nuclear issue is not seen as a priority for Biden when he entered the White House, and Biden has made it clear that he is not willing to negotiate unconditionally with Kim. But he is willing to open the door to diplomatic engagement, perhaps starting with lower-level officials.
But if, as in 2017, North Korea launches a missile after the U.S. president takes office, it would change Mr. Biden’s plans for diplomatic engagement and respond with tough measures, such as the resumption of major U.S. and South Korean military exercises, the deployment of more American troops and forces in South Korea, and increased sanctions against North Korea. Predictably, Biden’s Policy toward North Korea will no longer be personal diplomacy, but a return to the holistic thinking of U.S. policy toward North Korea prior to 2017, and the “horse grabbing” of the past four years will no longer be repeated.
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