President Donald Trump returned to his real estate deal-making playbook on Thursday when he abruptly canceled his summit with North Korea’s leader and demanded that Kim Jong Un personally step in to keep the talks on track. The move showed that Trump was increasingly concerned that Kim might have the upper hand in the lead up to the highly anticipated June 12 meeting in Singapore, and that the U.S. had lost control of the planning process.
For several days, Kim’s government had stopped returning requests from U.S. negotiators to discuss the summit, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told lawmakers on Thursday. In the meantime, North Korean officials had released statements taking a harder line against denuclearization calling “stupid” and “ignorant” a comparison made by Vice President Mike Pence comparing talks with North Korea to Libya’s nuclear disarmament. Pence is not one to improvise his remarks, making the pronouncement all the more troubling for the North Koreans. (The Vice President’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)
Speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon, a senior White House official shed more light on what happened. According to the official, North Korea had promised the U.S. a meeting in Singapore last week to work out logistics for the June 12 summit. The Trump Administration sent representatives, but North Korea never showed. “They simply stood us up,” the official said. The official also said that North Korea had promised that international leaders and nuclear experts would be invited to witness today’s demolition of the nuclear test site; instead they only invited journalists. And the official said the U.S. was worried when North Korea objected to a routine annual joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea. “There has been a trail of broken promises that gave the United States pause,” he said.
Trump had railed to his staff in recent days about the comments coming out of North Korea, but was repeatedly assured they came from mid-level officials and did not seem designed to derail the talks, according to a White House official. But alarm bells for were going off for Trump, who has often said that a negotiator must be willing to walk away to avoid looking desperate for a deal.
Trump worried that his side was increasingly looking like it wanted the meeting more than Pyongyang, the official said. News stories showed the White House had minted commemorative coins for the Singapore summit, Trump himself had said “everyone thinks” he should win the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, and Trump Administration staff were setting aside hotel rooms in Singapore for the formalities.
Read More: White House Gift Shop Offers Discounts on Commemorative Coins for North Korea Summit
Trump abruptly decided to cancel the meeting Thursday morning — in much the same way he had accepted Kim’s offer — with little consultation with his staff, American lawmakers or allies.
“Sadly, based on the tremendous anger displayed in your most recent statement,” Trump wrote to Kim. “I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.”
The White House official said that Trump met with Pence, Pompeo, Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Adviser John Bolton and others Thursday morning, and after considering his decision, Trump “dictated every word of the letter himself.”
But even as Trump spiked the meeting, he left the door open for Kim to make an overture. In the letter, Trump went out of his way to say he felt a “wonderful dialogue” was building between the two leaders and that he appreciated the “beautiful gesture”…
