In Vietnam, US must not offer premature concessions to North Korea [View all]
During his State of the Union address, President Trump announced that his second summit with Kim Jong un will occur on Feb. 27 and 28 in Vietnam. But as the recently released Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community has noted, “North Korea is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons and production capabilities, even as it seeks to negotiate partial denuclearization steps to obtain key U.S. and international concessions.” As such, to maximize prospects for success, the Trump administration needs a defined game plan that accounts for likely intransigence from Pyongyang.
The planned summit comes in the wake of significant U.S. sanctions on North Korea and its enablers. The Trump administration issued 156 sanctions designations in its first 16 months. (By contrast, the Obama administration issued only 154 in eight years.) Notably, targets included not only North Korean actors but also non-North Korean companies and individuals facilitating Pyongyang’s sanctions-busting schemes. This pressure likely helped persuade Pyongyang to return to talks.
At the same time, North Korea’s highly visible progress in nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development likely provided Kim with a confidence boost to finally engage the U.S. Specifically, Kim Jong Un has publicly stated numerous times that North Korea completed its nuclear force.
Overall, these developments make it difficult to assess whether Kim’s push for diplomacy stems from a strategic decision to dismantle his nuclear arsenal. But if the first summit in Singapore is any indication, Kim may still be interested more in deceptive and duplicitous diplomacy than in good-faith negotiations that could lead to denuclearization.
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/429966-in-vietnam-us-must-not-offer-premature-concessions-to-north-korea
Kim knows that all he has to do is butter Trump up and he can get anything he wants.
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