How walking away from Kim Jong Un strengthens Trump's hand
Trump has established more credibility in this relationship — and in future talks
When President Trump left Washington, D.C., this week for his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was unleashing sordid allegations against Trump during his testimony to the House Oversight Committee. The president desperately needed a change of narrative, not to mention a foreign-policy win.
And yet in the end, Trump walked away in Hanoi. The man who bragged about his superior abilities to cut deals walked out on the leader he had spent the past year praising as one of his best friends on the world stage. But in doing so, Trump might have built even more credibility for the next round of negotiations.
Before coming to Vietnam, Trump seemed to need a big enough win to justify the second summit. Critics took aim at Trump for holding his first meeting with Kim without first negotiating commitments for denuclearization. That raised the ante for Trump and increased the pressure to make concessions and to leave Hanoi with a political win. Indeed, many expected Trump to get any kind of a deal he could in order to overshadow the scandals back home and set up his 2020 campaign. For instance, former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice wondered in a New York Times op-ed if Trump could restrain himself from "caving to Kim." Having relied on false optimism about his relationship to Kim, Rice wrote, Trump might have to make more concessions than necessary to keep from a massive and embarrassing failure in Hanoi. That itself would "risk squandering an opportunity to make real headway on denuclearization."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Rice's postulation of the risks might sound familiar to critics of the Obama administration she served. Republicans criticized Barack Obama in the 2008 election cycle for pledging to meet with Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, as well as Iran's leadership, "without preconditions." They later charged that, in a rush to get a short-term foreign policy win, Obama's nuclear deal with Iran surrendered all of the U.S. leverage up front for vague and temporary concessions on nuclear weapons without addressing the issue of Iran's ballistic missile program at all.
Obama, of course, had argued that the benefits of direct diplomacy would be enough to justify the risks. Trump relied on a similar argument in for 2018's summit in Singapore, afterward claiming that the meeting had put an end to the threat of war with North Korea.
This time around, however, the president walked away. Trump sounded unusually gracious as the talks collapsed, calling the summit "very productive," but ultimately a dead end. "Sometimes you have to walk," Trump explained, "and this was just one of those times." A planned working lunch and signing ceremony had to be scrapped, the latter of which would have been heavily featured by the White House and Trump himself in the weeks and months to come.
What happened? The stalemate of the last several months about the definition of and steps toward denuclearization remains the biggest obstacle. "Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn't do that," Trump told the press. Their offers for denuclearization were incremental and focused on "areas that are less important than the ones that we want."
Even so, Trump remained optimistic about the potential for an eventual agreement and about his negotiating partner. Kim "has a certain vision and it's not exactly our vision," he commented, "but it's a lot closer than it was a year ago." The talks ended on a friendly note, Trump insisted. "We shook hands," he told reporters, adding, "there's a warmth that we have now. I hope that stays. I think it will."
If so, the opportunity still exists for a later breakthrough if Trump and Kim can agree on a step-by-step plan to produce real and verifiable concessions. Perhaps Kim came to Hanoi with the same assumptions that Trump's critics made — that he needed a foreign-policy win badly enough to consider out-of-the-box proposals to get it, not just to overshadow the scandal back home, but to make an argument for his re-election campaign in 2020. By hanging tough, Kim might have assumed that Trump would cut any kind of deal just to get to the signing ceremony.
By walking away from the table, Trump has established more credibility in this relationship and in future talks. It will certainly surprise Trump's domestic critics, and perhaps it will surprise Kim enough to recalculate what he's willing to concede the next time the two meet. Trump made it clear that a bad deal is worse than no deal at all, and that may produce a better working environment — both in Pyongyang and in Washington.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Edward Morrissey has been writing about politics since 2003 in his blog, Captain's Quarters, and now writes for HotAir.com. His columns have appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Post, The New York Sun, the Washington Times, and other newspapers. Morrissey has a daily Internet talk show on politics and culture at Hot Air. Since 2004, Morrissey has had a weekend talk radio show in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and often fills in as a guest on Salem Radio Network's nationally-syndicated shows. He lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota with his wife, son and daughter-in-law, and his two granddaughters. Morrissey's new book, GOING RED, will be published by Crown Forum on April 5, 2016.
-
'Elevating Earth Day into a national holiday is not radical — it's practical'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
UAW scores historic win in South at VW plant
Speed Read Volkswagen workers in Tennessee have voted to join the United Auto Workers union
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Today's political cartoons - April 22, 2024
Cartoons Monday's cartoons - dystopian laughs, WNBA salaries, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published