President Trump called off the summit meeting with Kim Jung Un this morning. Trump had a letter delivered to Kim a few hours after the NKs blew up their nuclear test site. Trump said that in view of the angry and harsh rhetoric coming from the NK government, there seemed to be no point in having the meeting now. He left open the possibility of a meeting in the future if the NKs desire it.
This puts the North Koreans in a tough position. They were the ones who asked for the meeting in the first place. Then as the meeting got close, Kim either got cold feet or he was just posturing by denouncing the US and officials like the vice president because America was saying that its would need complete denuclearization by North Korea to come to any agreement. Failure to denuclearize would lead to the end of the Kim regime. If the NKs don't seek a meeting in the future, then they remain in the squeeze that led to the call for a meeting in the first place. On the other hand, if the NKs renew their call for a meeting, then they will have in essence given up their position that something less than complete denuclearization might be acceptable.
There will no doubt be an enormous number of "experts" who criticize the President for being 1) too brash; 2) not brash enough; 3) too strong; 4) not strong enough; etc. We shall have to wait to see what happens next.
It would have been nice to have seen a peace deal with the North Koreans. If nothing else, however, we did get our hostages released and got to watch the North Koreans blow up their nuclear test site.
This puts the North Koreans in a tough position. They were the ones who asked for the meeting in the first place. Then as the meeting got close, Kim either got cold feet or he was just posturing by denouncing the US and officials like the vice president because America was saying that its would need complete denuclearization by North Korea to come to any agreement. Failure to denuclearize would lead to the end of the Kim regime. If the NKs don't seek a meeting in the future, then they remain in the squeeze that led to the call for a meeting in the first place. On the other hand, if the NKs renew their call for a meeting, then they will have in essence given up their position that something less than complete denuclearization might be acceptable.
There will no doubt be an enormous number of "experts" who criticize the President for being 1) too brash; 2) not brash enough; 3) too strong; 4) not strong enough; etc. We shall have to wait to see what happens next.
It would have been nice to have seen a peace deal with the North Koreans. If nothing else, however, we did get our hostages released and got to watch the North Koreans blow up their nuclear test site.
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