U.S. President Donald Trump praised North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as “very open” and “terrific” Monday and announced he likely will hold a second summit with Kim “quite soon,” striking a far less ominous note at the United Nations about the nuclear threat from the North.
Twelve months after Trump stood at the rostrum of the UN General Assembly and derided Kim as “Rocket Man,” the push to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula is a work in progress, although fears of war have given way to dreams of rapprochement. On Monday, the president’s bellicose denunciations of Pyongyang had largely been replaced by hopeful notes, as Trump praised Kim as “very open” and “terrific.”
“It was a different world,” Trump said Monday of his one-time moniker for the North Korean leader. “That was a dangerous time. This is one year later, a much different time.”
He added that preparations are underway by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a second presidential meeting with Kim “quite soon.”
The meeting would come despite U.S. officials assessing that the North has not followed through on its commitments to take steps toward denuclearization. Pompeo defended Trump’s decision to seek another meeting despite the slow progress.
Just 12 months ago, Trump denounced North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and called him ‘Rocket Man’ during his speech before the General Assembly. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)
“We’ve been at this the other way an awfully long time and failed,” he said.
He added: “We tried to do details. We tried to do step for step. We tried to do trade for trade. Each of those failed.”
Pompeo said, “We’re bringing the two senior leaders, the individuals who can actually make the decisions that will move this process forward,” in hopes they can make a breakthrough.
Trump meets South Korean leader
Trump arrived at the UN on Monday morning for a meeting on the global drug trade, ahead of a sit-down with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who delivered a personal message to Trump from Kim after their inter-Korean talks last week.
“You are the only person who can solve this problem,” Moon said to Trump, relaying Kim’s words.
Trump, for his part, said “We are in no rush. We are in no hurry” to bring about a nuclear agreement. U.S. officials are insisting that economic sanctions remain in place against the North until it eliminates its nuclear program.
Trump met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly on Monday. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
Trump and Moon are expected to sign a new version of the U.S.-South Korean trade agreement, one of Trump’s first successes in his effort to renegotiate trade deals on more favourable terms for the United States. Even so, some U.S. officials worry that South Korea’s eagerness to restore relations with the North could reduce sanctions pressure on Kim’s government, hampering efforts to negotiate a nuclear accord.
The nuclear threat was on the agenda at Trump’s first meeting in New York, a dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Manhattan on Sunday night. Abe stands first among world leaders in cultivating a close relationship with the president through displays of flattery that he has used to advance his efforts to influence the unpredictable American leader.
“We have our eyes wide open,” Pompeo told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “There is a long ways to go to get chairman Kim to live up to the commitment that he made to President Trump and, indeed, to the demands of the world in the UN Security Council resolutions to get him to fully denuclearize.”
Trump, redoubling his commitment to “America First” on the most global of stages, will stress his dedication to the primacy of U.S. interests while competing with Western allies for an advantage on trade and shining a spotlight on the threat that he says Iran poses to the Middle East and beyond.
Scores of world leaders, even those representing America’s closest friends, remain wary of Trump.
In the 12 months since his last visit to the UN, the Republican president has jolted the global status quo by pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, starting trade conflicts with China and the West and embracing Russia’s Vladimir Putin even as the investigation into the U.S. president’s ties to Moscow moves closer to the Oval Office.