US President Donald Trump is set to meet with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on the 12th of June in Singapore. The summit is expected to be a landmark event where the two leaders will discuss the full denuclearisation of Kim’s regime’s arsenal of weapons in Pyongyang. The North have already made huge strides towards settling the nuclear crisis by promising to shut down one of its nuke testing sites in the next couple of weeks and inviting the world’s press to come and cover it.
The North Korean regime have also told the aviation authorities of the United Nations that they will no longer be conducting unauthorised and unexpected nuclear test launches that disrupt flight paths and terrorise neighbouring Asian countries like Japan.
These striking new developments have set up quite the summit. They’re the first steps in the road towards the international goal of fully denuclearising Kim’s regime, and by the time Trump sits down with the North’s leader, it seems as though they will be very much on the same page.
However, a huge spanner has been thrown in the works in the form of the North threatening to not turn up to this summit, sending the quest for denuclearisation back to square one. It would be like a game of Snakes and Ladders where you get near the end of the game and then get sent down a really long snake right back to the beginning. Trump is saying that China is to blame for the sudden change of heart as he tries to get North Korea back on side.
‘If it happens, it happens’
Apparently, the Chinese government – who have long been North Korea’s closest international allies – are the ones who have gotten Kim’s regime all freaked out about the Singapore meeting in a backhanded response to be left out of the invite. Trump’s enthusiasm for the Singapore summit with Kim has faded since North Korea announced their own changing emotions about it.
Now, the White House team are taking a lax approach to the summit discussion. They have said in a statement, “If it happens, it happens,” and the two leaders will talk about denuclearisation. But if it doesn’t happen and Kim doesn’t make an appearance, then Trump and his administration will simply move on and focus on the other issues.
North Korea and their nuclear program and the relationship between the two nations will still be a contentious subject for the American government that they will have to continue to deal with, even if Kim doesn’t show up and the summit doesn’t go ahead, but they will place a stronger focus on the other issues where the other parties involved are more interested in taking part in the negotiations. Still, Trump does want the Singapore meeting to go ahead – he’s promised “protections” to Kim if he does come and talk about denuclearisation.
Trump’s ‘protections’ offer is gravy for Kim
Trump’s offering of “protections” to Kim if he makes an appearance at the Singapore meeting in order to make the prospect a bit more enticing is an attempt by the White House to sweeten the deal.
The offer was extended as a sort of olive branch, or a cherry . These announcements were made by the White House while Trump was off in a meeting with Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General for NATO, an organisation which the US President has often criticised for being outdated.
So, why are North Korea considering pulling out of the face-to-face meeting between Kim and Trump in Singapore? Well, they have cited a number of reasons. There’s a lot that America have been doing that they are unhappy with: there are the comments that Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton made about Libya (which the President is now denying and undermining for the purposes of smoothing things over) and the military drills that the US have been conducting with South Korea, as well as the demands that Kim’s regime give up their nukes without anyone else in the world having to give up theirs.
