The surreal made-for-TV diplomacy that was the Trump-Kim summit has now officially drawn to a close. Going by a simple accounting of what was given up, Kim emerges as the clear winner in US-DPRK rapprochement – at least for now. President Trump has handed over the PR coup of a high-level summit and now the long sought-after concession of halting US-ROK military exercises (apparently without even warning his allies in Seoul). He has received nothing in return but a vaguely worded commitment to denuclearization from Kim Jong-un, which President Trump’s gut tells him is legit despite ample evidence of past duplicity from the DPRK. In the president’s words, he just “knows when somebody wants to deal.”
Will the summit be looked back on as the bold ice-breaker that rebooted US-DPRK relations, or will it be President Trump’s version of the 2001 Slovenia Summit where George W Bush famously looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and “got a sense of his soul”?
Only time will tell, but smart money is still on the latter.
Impact
Positive takeaways from the summit
- It wasn’t a disaster. There were no high-profile breaches of decorum (not counting Dennis Rodman’s harrowing CNN interview); no heated arguments; and the two leaders got along well enough for the cameras, though there were some moments were Kim Jong-un appeared a little stunned by it all.
- A mechanism for future dialogue has been established. The joint declaration between the two powers declares that the two parties “commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.” For one, the ‘earliest possible date’ qualifier is intentionally vague and it will be telling to see when the dialogue actually gets underway. Two, it’s unclear what exactly is meant by the ‘outcomes of the US-DPRK summit,’ but more on that later.
- The Hermit Kingdom comes out of its shell. A rare foreign trip and a summit with the most powerful country on Earth – there’s no denying that the Trump-Kim meeting was a potential step toward North Korea opening up to the world. However – and this is a huge however – this step is only a positive if one believes that Kim Jong-un is acting in good faith. For those who agree with President Trump’s appraisal that Kim ‘wants to make a deal,’ this was a positive and necessary step in the direction toward North Korea joining the global community of nations.
