Trump-Kim summit: North Korean leader 'de-nuking the whole place', president says – live
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Version 27 of 37. Car fancy: WATCH: President Trump shows North Korea's Kim Jong Un his presidential limo in Singapore https://t.co/pVDwUkeV0g pic.twitter.com/Kgl5CneMns Minority leader Chuck Schumer is on the floor of the Senate talking about the Singapore summit. “We must be clear-eyed on what a diplomatic success with North Korea looks like,” he says. That would be “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula, he says. “It’s imperative that we actually get action here, not just photo ops,” Schumer says. He points out there are no details in Trump’s signed statement about the definition of “complete denuclearization.” “Unfortunately the entire document is short on details,” Schumer says. “...It is worrisome, very worrisome, that this joint statement is so imprecise.” Schumer says that Trump has drawn a false equivalency between the “legitimate” joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States on one hand, and “illegal” North Korean nuclear testing on the other. Here’s a quickie selection of reactions in the United States to the Trump-Kim summit: ‘If Obama had done that...” The conservative pundit Erick Erickson: The whole design of this is offensive. The President pees in the punch bowl of the G7, insists the Russians come back into the organization, then flies off to Singapore to make kissy face with a man who routinely murders his own people. Had Barack Obama done that, Republicans would be demanding his impeachment. I generally think Donald Trump has run a pretty mature foreign policy that works for American interests. But this past week has been a diplomatic farce, and I suspect those generic ballot numbers that have had Democrats panicking are suddenly going to swing back in their direction. ‘Demand rigorous verification’ Representative Jackie Speier of California: .@POTUS deserves credit for agreeing to #NKSummit &deserves shame for throwing a hissy fit w/our closest allies & using such degrading language. This must be more than a photo op w/Kim. We demand rigorous verification of denuclearization w/24 hour monitoring & no boundaries. ‘Cringe’ The conservative-leaning Naval War college professor Tom Nichols: I just watched a completely clueless President proclaim a special bond with one of the most ruthless murderers in the world, whom he thinks is “a talented man” who “loves his country.” If I cringed any harder my spine would snap. ‘Giving away the store for a photo op’ Daniel Serwer, director of the conflict management program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: President Trump today agreed to suspend US military exercises with South Korea during negotiations with the North and to provide Pyongyang with unspecified security guarantees in exchange for an equally vague commitment to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. He and Kim Jong-un also got their photo op, which featured a stunning array of American and Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea flags. The quid pro quo is clear: the US will be guaranteeing the permanence of one of the most brutal dictatorships on earth and reducing its commitment to its South Korean allies in exchange for some still-to-be-determined constraints on North Korean missile and nuclear weapons capabilities. The joint statement contains no reference at all to human rights issues or North Korean abductions, though it does refer to repatriation of the remains of prisoners of war and those missing in action from the Korean War. All you need to know about this deal is what the Republicans would be saying if President Obama had negotiated it. ‘Art of the Deal’? Peter Singer, fellow with the progressive New America foundation: You gotta give up something to get nothing.The new Art of the Deal. ‘Trump got hosed’ Politico editor Blake Hounshell: Waking up this morning, it sure seems like Trump got hosed. Anyone see differently? ‘Jesus f**king Christ’ Dan Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University: Jesus f**king Christ. https://t.co/B8lsyOvagk A preview of the Guardian Weekly front page: Latest issue hits the presses. The US-North Korea denuclearisation summit is lead story. World affairs editor @julianborger assesses the meeting and the challenges still to be tackled https://t.co/eev430lBK3 pic.twitter.com/WnjgbymL7T In an interview in Singapore with ABC News, Trump asserts that his deal with Kim means that Kim is “de-nuking the whole place.” That understanding seems to go beyond the language of the signed agreement which was “the DPRK commits to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.” Here’s part of Trump’s exchange with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News: Stephanopoulos: They’ve got to get rid of all their nuclear weapons? Trump: They will. I really believe that he will. I’ve gotten to know him well over a short period of time. Stephanopoulos: Did he tell you that? Trump: Yeah, sure. It’s de-nuking, I mean he’s de-nuking the whooole, place, and he’s going to start very quickly, I think he’s going to start now. TRUMP: "...he’s de-nuking, I mean he’s de-nuking the whole place. It’s going to start very quickly. I think he’s going to start now."@GStephanopoulos sits down exclusively with @realDonaldTrump on the historic meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un: https://t.co/Z6pvzS8jdd pic.twitter.com/hLFn8oNGe3 In an interview in Singapore with ABC News, Trump said he had been guided in his meeting with Kim by expertise crafted over a lifetime of dealmaking. GEORGE: How do you trust him, though?"TRUMP: "Well, you know, over my lifetime I've done a lot of deals with a lot of people."@GStephanopoulos sits down exclusively with @realDonaldTrump on the historic meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un: https://t.co/tchTBSFizl pic.twitter.com/zW8Kryief6 A statement issued by Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump on behalf of the Trump campaign, hails the agreement as the “product of President Trump’s bold and vigilant leadership”. It says: “The president achieved more than expected with an agreement from North Korea to return the remains of American POWs and destroy a missile testing site, while economic sanctions remain in place.” Trump campaign statement on NKorea summit pic.twitter.com/gfzgCVThva The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has welcomed the summit as an important first step and urged both sides to compromise. A statement issued by his office said: “The Secretary-General welcomes the holding of the Summit between the leaders of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States as an important milestone in the advancement of sustainable peace and the complete and verifiable denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.” “As the Secretary-General noted in letters to both leaders before the Summit, the road ahead requires cooperation, compromise and a common cause. Implementing today’s and previous agreements reached, in accordance with relevant Security Council resolutions, will require patience and support from the global community. The Secretary-General urges all concerned parties to seize this momentous opportunity and reiterates his readiness to fully support the ongoing process.” The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland wonders what candidate Trump would have made of the Singapore agreement after his bellicose rhetoric about Obama’s Iran deal. The Iran deal, which Trump regularly denounced as “horrible” and from which he withdrew last month, consisted of 110 pages of detailed arrangements – including the deployment of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, cameras, seals and the like – to verify Tehran’s fulfilment of its nuclear promises. The Singapore text, which barely runs to a page and a half, does not so much as breathe the word “verifiable”. Indeed, Trump could not even get a commitment from Kim to basic transparency, to disclose the scope of North Korea’s current nuclear capacity, both the weapons it has and its manufacturing capability. How can the world know what Pyongyang has got rid of if it doesn’t know what it has? Michael H Fuchs, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former deputy assistant secretary of state for east Asian and Pacific affairs, says Kim appears to be leaving Singapore with a spring in his step while Trump left with very little. Writing in the Guardian he says: The vague joint statement – much less detailed than either the 1994 Agreed Framework or the 2005 Six-Party statement – contains no specific commitments by North Korea. No commitment to inspections or verification. No commitment to interim steps along the path to denuclearization. There’s not even a commitment to continue a freeze on nuclear and missile testing. Diplomacy with North Korea requires skepticism. North Korea has long ignored the demands of the international community to give up its nuclear programs, its aggressive behavior, and to end its systemic human rights violations. All previous diplomatic agreements failed to get rid of North Korea’s nuclear programs. Today, Trump is heralding an historic deal, but tomorrow could decide he’s done with diplomacy – just days before this summit Trump agreed to a communique with the leaders of the G-7, then withdrew his support hours later. With Trump, always take events one day at a time. Here’s the action-movie trailer style video Trump played to journalists and Kim at the summit. Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw is not impressed and thinks we have seen this movie before. The point of any film’s trailer is to whet the audience’s appetite and give them an idea of what sort of film it is – without spoilers. Is this what A Story of Opportunity does? We’re getting sold an exciting action-adventure in which the good guys (America) convince the bad guys (North Korea) to come over to the side of decency. But it could be more like Wag the Dog, Barry Levinson’s 1997 satire, starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, about cynical politicos who concoct a big foreign sideshow to distract everyone’s attention from problems on the home front. At any rate, it looks weirdly boring. The UK’s former foreign secretary Jack Straw said today’s summit was “genuinely historic”. He told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “The difference now between this and previous agreements is that these two leaders have put their own personalities and leadership positions on the line in order to secure a lasting agreement.” Straw added: There are some very big questions, particularly about the United States’ nuclear assets, most of which are not land-based. There is going to be an almighty discussion with the North Koreans about how far the US moves and undertakes to keep out of a large area around the Korean peninsula, it owns nuclear submarines. That said this is genuinely historic. Kim Jong-un has got to be seen to deliver. Although this is a hereditary dictatorship he has got a backyard he has got to worry about. If the political establishment in North Korea and ultimately the North Korea people think that nothing much is being delivered they’re going to start getting very shirty about this. The other thing that Donald Trump has to watch is that the North Koreans have a history of straightforwardly lying about what they are intending to do. Ensuring that there is proper and effective verification is going to be critical. Trump is returning home, but his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is travelling to South Korea and China to work on the so far absent detail of how to denuclearise the Korean peninsula. Tomorrow Seoul, then on to Beijing to continue to build the team to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. #singaporesummit @StateDept pic.twitter.com/zDwcfH6C5x Pompeo also picks out his highlights from the talks: North Korea’s commitment on the remains of prisoners of war; human rights; religious freedom and Japanese abductees. The most personally meaningful part of the agreement today was the commitment to recover Korean War POW/MIA remains, incl the immediate repatriation of those fallen heroes already identified. #mikelovesveterans pic.twitter.com/vwoRcuUInH Among the issues @potus and our team discussed with #NorthKorea human rights, religious freedom and Japanese abductees. @StateDept pic.twitter.com/WmFVaftxR4 Dr John Nilsson-Wright, senior research fellow on the Asia-Pacific Programme at the Chatham House, thinktank agrees that Trump has conceded more than he secured in return from Kim. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme he said the agreement was ambiguous about what denuclearisation meant. He added: “Donald Trump has given quite an important concession by suspending those joint exercises.” And Nilsson-Wright cautioned against reading too much into Trump’s praise for Kim. He said: “We know that Donald Trump is pretty fickle in terms of his relationships, even with members of his own cabinet. He’d often in the past talked about special relationships, getting on with people, only later to change his position completely.” He also suggested that Trump had oversold the agreement. “Hats off to him. He is an extraordinarily good salesman when it comes to emphasising the positive, but detail still remain to be finalised. “Without sufficient trust, why would the North Koreans give up the one asset that protects them from a potential attack from a hostile power? This personal chemistry between the two men, if that’s what it is, is a useful first step, but sceptics would say that North Korea’s track record is not one of coming on board fully with these sorts of agreement. What Chairman Kim wants more than anything is time and he seems to have got that. This agreement unlike the April 27th North/South agreement includes no specific dates, no specific timetable no specific agreements on verification, on the arrival of inspectors. “Donald Trump said in his press conference that he wasn’t able to get that detail. That is an extraordinary concession. It proves that for all of his much-vaunted negotiating prowess he hasn’t be able to solidify something that most sober-minded observers would say is essential.” |