June 11, 2018
NORTH KOREA SUMMIT
The 3 things to watch for when President Trump meets Kim Jong Un on Tuesday in Singapore.
FLIP: Get the popcorn.
What Does the U.S. Want?
- N. Korea to abandon its arsenal of nuclear weapons & ballistic missiles, allowing in inspectors to confirm it is truly disarming.
- U.S. defense & intelligence say N. Korea is close to being able to strike anywhere in the continental U.S. with a nuclear-tipped missile, which Pres. Trump & other U.S. officials say they wouldn’t tolerate.
What Does N. Korea Want?
- Summit already seen as a win by N. Korea – no sitting U.S. President has ever met with a N. Korean leader (Presidents Carter & Clinton only visited after office).
- NoKo will likely demand security assurances regime will not be overthrown or removed if nukes are removed.
- Dropping of sanctions to allow more $$ in NoKo economy.
What is Success?
- U.S. admin has had some successes already; Sec. of State Pompeo secured release of 3 Americans after meeting Kim Jong Un in May.
- Unclear if Pres Trump will declare anything less than complete denuclearization a success; he’s called it a “mission of peace.”
It may be a sitting President’s first time negotiating with North Korea, but not America’s. Read the personal stories from those who’ve sat across the table, including tales of matching Kim Jong Un lapel pins and North Koreans quoting “Gone with the Wind.”
- Trump Greets 3 American Detainees From North Korea (From early May):
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/us/politics/trump-korea-detainees-pompeo.html - Fascinating Read: Tough Talk: US Envoys on how to negotiate with North Korea:
https://apnews.com/75404d2a25ef40f69eb8a57d3b248f6e/Tough-talk:-US-envoys-on-how-to-negotiate-with-North-Korea
Gallucci, then an assistant secretary of state, recalled that the Americans were taken aback by the sight of a dozen or so North Korean diplomats, each one with a lapel pin with a picture of their supreme leader.You can imagine us going into a meeting with lapel pins with Bill Clinton”s picture? It”s just implausible. But that actually goes to something that”s quite important for people to understand, said Gallucci, describing North Korea as a cult of leadership as much as it is an authoritarian government.
And one forgets that at one”s peril. I think you can lose a lot of ground in discussion if you don”t understand how sensitive they are about their leadership.
__“To the Americans” surprise, North Korea”s deputy foreign minister, Kang Sok Ju, during the talks quoted from the epic American civil war novel, Gone with the Wind. It wasn”t the line immortalized by Clark Gable in the Hollywood movie — Frankly, my dear, I don”t give a damn, Gallucci said, but rather something to do with wagons rolling and dogs barking. After the meeting, he gave Kang a copy of the book as a gift. Gallucci got a box of Korean ginseng tea in return.
by Jenna Lee,
