A long road to nowhere

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By Kevin Liptak, CNN
Updated 7:50 PM ET, Thu February 28, 2019

... The sometimes-contentious talks held inside the green-shuttered Metropole Hotel here were cut short when it became clear to Trump and his aides that Kim would not accept any outcome less than a full removal of crippling economic sanctions -- a request North Korea's foreign minister later denied.

Trump was surprised by Kim's demand, according to a person familiar with the negotiations, believing the young despot had come to the Vietnamese capital prepared to deal. Even though his aides warned him the North Koreans were proving intractable in preliminary talks, Trump -- a self-professed deal artist -- still felt there was a chance Kim would prove reasonable at the table.

He wasn't, as Trump learned during a lengthy negotiating session that stretched beyond its allotted time. Speaking through two female interpreters, the two men went back-and-forth for more than two hours, failing even to strike an agreement on what the term "denuclearization" meant.

Even the promise of dismantling one of North Korea's major nuclear sites fell short when Trump's aides warned him that would not match the type of sanctions relief Kim was demanding. Trump told reporters, "They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn't do that," though later in the day Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho disputed that, stating North Korea asked only for a partial lifting of sanctions in exchange for the verified dismantling of uranium and plutonium production facilities at Yongbyon ...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/28/politics/donald-trump-hanoi-summit-north-korea/index.html

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1. Flattery got Trump nowhere

The Editorial Board, USA TODAY
Published 6:16 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2019
Updated 6:23 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2019

... Here was an embattled U.S. president eager for a diplomatic victory to deflect attention from embarrassing headlines back home — a self-styled master deal-maker, looking to demonstrate he alone could solve intractable problems that had bedeviled predecessors ...

Kim did not come away from Hanoi empty-handed. Every time he meets with Trump, it raises the despot's stature on the world stage and lends legitimacy to his cruel leadership.

The imagery is bracing. On Wednesday, the American president told the world it was an "honor" to stand next to Kim — whose murderous regime operates gulags filled with tens of thousands of people.

By Thursday, Trump was all but giving Kim a pass for the brutal death in 2017 of American college student Otto Warmbier: "He tells me he didn't know about it, and I take him at his word" ...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/02/28/north-korea-summit-flattery-got-donald-trump-nowhere-editorials-debates/3013923002/

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2. Doomed from the start

Feb. 28, 2019, 4:07 PM EST
By Andrea Mitchell

WASHINGTON — What happens when you hold a summit without doing your homework, and after ignoring warnings from your own intelligence chiefs that Kim Jong Un would never give up his nuclear weapons?

Your summit falls apart, as President Donald Trump's did early Thursday morning. The outcome suggests that the biggest mistake made by the president and his top advisers was agreeing to the meeting with the North Korean leader in the first place ...

As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, told MSNBC, "the nuts and bolts of nuclear disarmament is a very difficult process; nuclear disarmament is far more difficult than the art of the deal. It's not about personal diplomacy or made for TV moments. I did not think the president should have gone to the summit without the preparation" ...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/warning-signs-were-clear-trump-s-north-korea-summit-was-n977866

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3. How much did the summit cost?

By Justin Rohrlich & Heather Timmons
February 28, 2019

... Not only was it it bad for Trump’s reputation at home and abroad, the meeting in Vietnam cost US taxpayers at least $6 million, according to a Quartz analysis of government spending reports and Air Force One operating costs.

That figure likely underestimates significantly the total expense of the presidential trip to Hanoi, because it doesn’t include the cost of flying advance teams to Asia in order to plan and to scout meeting locations, the extra security costs to protect the White House team, or on-the-ground costs during two refueling stops for Air Force One ...

https://qz.com/1562364/how-much-did-trumps-failed-north-korea-summit-cost-taxpayers/

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4. End of summit exposed limits of strategy

By John Hudson , Anne Gearan and Simon Denyer
February 28 at 7:05 PM

... That was never going to work without more preparation and bottom-up planning, said Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations ...

The abrupt end to the summit may have exposed the limits of Trump’s strategy to appeal directly to Kim, whom he used to ridicule as “Little Rocket Man” but now praises as a savvy leader who could preside over his country’s economic transformation. Trump said the two parted on friendly terms, but he did not dangle a White House invitation or other perks as he did following their first meeting last year ...

“You don’t set up a summit this way and be surprised like that,” Jentleson said. “You do the prep work, you have a degree of agreement beforehand” ...

Sue Mi Terry and Lisa Collins, fellows on Korea at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, assessed the summit as a failure that could “make it very difficult to move negotiations forward at the working level since the discussions on even basic principles have failed at the highest leadership level” ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/dispute-over-sanctions-leaves-trump-and-north-koreans-in-free-fall/2019/02/28/f701b450-c805-4e25-af11-fbdf4e0a79bc_story.html?utm_term=.d471c1bd0f66

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5. Uncertainty, if not crisis, ahead

... "The fact that there was no deal - and not even a partial deal, despite the fact that President Trump indicated that a small deal was possible - I think that is a significant disappointment," said Frank Aum, a former top adviser on North Korea to US defense secretaries ...

"It's hard to see credible negotiations continuing. The whole point of leader-level talks was to meet with the person who can make actual decisions. That cuts both ways," said Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars ...

Despite his boasts that he is making progress like no US president before, "Trump's approach has yielded nothing new and has not even come close to resolving the North Korea nuclear threat," said Paul Haenle, a former White House official now at the Carnegie Tsinghua Centre think tank in Beijing ...

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/and-now-what-uncertainty-if-not-crisis-ahead-for-us-north-korea-11300420

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6. Defends Kim Jong Un in Otto Warmbier death

... Seeking justice for the pain and suffering, the Warmbiers sued the North Korean government for more than a $1 billion late last year, saying U.S. officials had publicly confirmed that North Korea tortured their 21-year-old son, who died just six days after being brought back to the U.S.

The University of Virginia student had been on a tour when he was arrested for tearing down a poster.

On Thursday in Hanoi, despite having publicly supported the Warmbier family, President Trump struck a much different tone, saying he believed the dictator who runs North Korea's ruthless regime when he said he didn't know Warmbier was being tortured ...

“King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi,” the president said in a statement ...

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-defends-kim-jong-death-american-student-otto/story?id=61383424

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7. After swagger, talks collapse

By Robin Wright 1:36 P.M.

President Trump was boastful as he opened his second summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, in Hanoi, on Wednesday. “Everybody having a good time?” he said after the two leaders’ first half-hour tête-à-tête. “Boy, if you could have heard that dialogue, what you would pay for that dialogue. It was good,” Trump said. “A lot of things are going to be solved, I hope. And I think it will lead to, really, a wonderful situation long-term.” The White House schedule called for a lunch and a joint signing ceremony to wrap up the historic diplomacy—and some kind of deal ...

... negotiating with the North Koreans has been the most frustrating, tedious, and time-consuming diplomacy in the world for seven decades. In contrast, Vietnam, which hosted the summit, began repairing relations within two decades of a war that killed millions. “Bromances aren’t enough to alter an insecure regime’s deep attachment to weapons of mass destruction,” Victor Cha, who was the director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, told me ...

Other experts and former negotiators with North Korea contend that Trump should not have held a second summit with Kim—yet. “Trump shouldn’t have been here in the first place,” Wendy Sherman, who negotiated with North Korea during the Clinton Administration and was the lead nuclear negotiator with Iran during the Obama Administration, told me. “Clearly announcing an agreement signing that hasn’t been agreed is a bit of a disaster. So caught up in the love letters, the summit was poorly prepared and signals misread.” She added, “What we don’t know is if the wedding has been called off entirely or if the bromance is just having a spat.” Given the setback, she said, it would be hard to imagine any kind of conclusive success for the Trump Administration before the 2020 Presidential election.

Kim walked away from Hanoi the winner, Rebecca Hersman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me. “He was yet again given a stage with the U.S. President who speaks warmly of him and his leadership and even provides him cover for the death of a U.S. citizen.” At his press conference, Trump said he believed Kim’s claim that he was unaware of the case of Otto Warmbier, a young tourist who suffered brain damage while under arrest in North Korea. (He later died after being returned to the U.S.) “He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word,” Trump said ...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/after-all-the-swagger-trumps-talks-with-north-korea-collapse

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8. Vanity diplomacy falls flat

... Hours before their talks in Hanoi, he predicted a “fantastic success” in their long-term dealings. His hunger for a personal triumph was spurred by the excoriating testimony from his former lawyer Michael Cohen back home. When it all went wrong, he said the US had walked because Mr Kim wanted all sanctions lifted – a huge step, not in his gift. North Korea insists it sought only partial (though substantial) sanction relief. It had also made it clear prior to talks that it wanted to see sanctions lifted before it put Yongbyon out of action. The reported sidelining of Steve Biegun, the US special representative, cannot have helped – but may have been effect as much as cause. Many already suspected John Bolton was key to the talks’ collapse.

The question is where they go from here. In his post-summit press conference Mr Trump boasted of progress, described their dealings as “very friendly”, and even exculpated Mr Kim over the treatment of Otto Warmbier, the US student who died after being held in North Korea for 17 months. North Korea struck a harsher tone, saying Mr Kim “got the feeling that he didn’t understand the way Americans calculate” and may have “lost the will” for further talks ...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2019/feb/28/the-guardian-view-on-the-us-and-north-korea-trumps-vanity-diplomacy-falls-flat

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9. Disdain for Human Rights

By FRANCISCO BENCOSME
February 28, 2019

Yet again, President Donald Trump has failed to raise North Korea’s dire human rights record at a major historical summit with Kim Jong Un. When asked about it during a press conference, Trump appears to have excused and enabled Kim Jong Un’s worst actions. He gave Kim a platform on the world stage only to showcase his own disdain for human rights.

What a reversal from the beginning of the Trump Administration, when Trump got in front of the U.S. Congress and pronounced his commitment to ensure freedom for the North Korean people. He did the same in front of the National Assembly in Seoul. Both instances took place before Trump and Kim “fell in love.” Time and time again, Trump continues to laud and relish his personal chemistry with Kim at the expense of spotlighting relentless and grave human rights violations. In Hanoi, he even took Kim’s words at face value concerning the death of the American citizen, Otto Warmbier.

Despite opening up to the outside world to discuss denuclearization and economic cooperation, North Korea has yet to show solid evidence of any improvements in its dire human rights record. There is no sign that grave and systematic human rights violations such as arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, are ending in the country. Some of these may amount to crimes against humanity. Judge Thomas Buergenthal, a co-author of a 2017 report from the International Bar Association War Crimes Committee, survived Auschwitz and said North Korea’s labor camps are as bad as those run by the Nazis.

As a result of Trump glossing over the regime’s actions, Kim Jong Un and other North Korean officials who are responsible for these crimes continue to go unpunished. The U.N. has recommended that its Security Council discuss actions regarding the human rights situation in North Korea, including possible referral to the International Criminal Court ...

http://time.com/5541216/trump-kim-human-rights-north-korea/

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10. Pelosi needles Trump

By John Wagner
February 28 at 12:49 PM

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) needled President Trump Thursday after the collapse of his talks with Kim Jong Un, suggesting it shouldn’t have taken him so long to recognize the North Korean leader is not serious about denuclearization.

“I guess it took two meetings for him to realize that Kim Jong Un is not on the level,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference. “The prospect for success seemed dim in light of the insincerity of Kim Jong Un” ...

Pelosi also criticized Trump for comments in a news conference in Hanoi. Trump said he took Kim at his word that he wouldn’t have allowed American college student Otto Warmbier to be treated so poorly if he knew about his situation. Warmbier’s family says he was brutally tortured while imprisoned in North Korea and died in 2017 after returning to the United States in a coma.

Pelosi said it was “wrong” that Trump is willing to believes “thugs” like Kim. She also cited Trump’s inclination to believe Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s contention that he did not interfere with the U.S. presidential election in 2016 despite a contrary conclusion for U.S. intelligence officials ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pelosi-needles-trump-after-collapse-of-talks-with-north-korean-leader/2019/02/28/ec0fa21e-3b72-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html?utm_term=.86308c3e8f71

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11. Failure exposes weak diplomacy

... The president supposed that his personal and improvisational diplomacy, featuring unwarranted and unseemly flattery of a murderous tyrant, would make possible the substantive steps toward disarmament that the regime has resisted for decades ...

,,, Mr. Trump’s miscalculation leaves U.S.-North Korean relations in disarray, even as the regime continues to produce material for weapons and long-range missiles capable of striking the United States. His failure calls for a fundamental reshaping of the U.S. approach — one that is more realistic about the nature of the Kim regime, including its horrific human rights violations ...

... Mr. Trump has gushed about flattering letters he received from Mr. Kim, spoken about falling in love with him and ceased U.S. efforts to call attention to the crimes against humanity Mr. Kim is credibly accused of. Meanwhile, international economic pressure on the regime eased.

Even after the summit’s failure, Mr. Trump persisted in sending the wrong messages. At a news conference in Hanoi, he cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that North Korea is continuing to expand its nuclear arsenal and declined to say whether he would still demand complete denuclearization before lifting sanctions. He again questioned the costs of the U.S.-South Korean military alliance ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-hanoi-summit-failure-exposes-trumps-weak-diplomacy/2019/02/28/d922fac0-3b63-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html?utm_term=.2c5abcbab681

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12. Nikki Haley on Otto Warmbier

BY BRETT SAMUELS - 02/28/19 11:31 AM EST

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Thursday that "Americans know the cruelty" that North Korea's government inflicted on Otto Warmbier, hours after President Trump said he took Kim Jong Un at his word that the leader was not responsible for Warmbier's death ...

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/432016-nikki-haley-americans-know-the-cruelty-north-korea-placed-on

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13. Defense of dictator caps failed summit

DAN SPINELLI
FEBRUARY 28, 2019 10:52 AM

... Trump’s about-face on Warmbier’s imprisonment comes amid a broader strategic shift in how the administration has approached North Korea. After having once threatened the country with “fire and fury,” Trump has now met twice with its reclusive leader within a year. (Their latest summit this week in Hanoi ended early after Kim refused to meet US demands to destroy his nuclear weapons.) As Trump’s praise of Kim—”my friend” and a leader who “loves his people“—has ratcheted up, his once-frequent mentions of the country’s human rights record have receded.

In fact, the ghastly conditions of North Korea’s prisons were, in Trump’s telling, even more reason to believe that Warmbier’s mistreatment was a matter of circumstance rather than the result of direction from Kim ...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/02/trumps-shocking-defense-of-north-korean-torture-caps-a-failed-summit/

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14. Unsurprising debacle

By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
February 28 at 11:11 AM

... This should surprise no one, says Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress. “What happened on North Korea is a textbook case of what not to do,” he says. “He flew all the way on the other side of the world for a deal that wasn’t anywhere close to having the necessary ingredients — let alone being partially baked.” He adds, “It was so poorly planned it makes me think Trump may have wanted an excuse just to get out of town during the damaging and embarrassing [Michael] Cohen testimony."

It seems that virtually no real progress has been made in talks since the Singapore summit. There was no agreement worked out in advance, so the risk of failure was high. And to top it off, it was evident to anyone keeping an eye on American politics (and the North Koreans study this intently) that Trump was desperate for something to call a win, something to divert attention from domestic debacles. Kim didn’t need to give an inch, and Trump wound up with another diplomatic belly-flop ...

“If you have no real plan, no real preparation, and no clearly defined objectives, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you end up with no deal,” says Jake Sullivan, former director of policy planning at the State Department and former Hillary Clinton adviser. “Trump needs to turn this over to the professionals now, in hopes that the larger effort doesn’t go off the rails."

It’s not clear what happens next. “They need a different diplomatic approach,” former acting CIA director John McLaughlin tells me. “It’s foolish to lay all of this on two leaders without adequate pre-meeting work.” He adds, “It’s also time to get the Chinese, Japanese, and South Korea more directly involved. This is complicated, time-consuming, detail-oriented stuff. It’s not a real estate deal.” He continues, “North Korea’s ultimate goal is to be treated like other states that have acquired nuclear weapons [such as] India or Pakistan. They want to keep enough of their weapons to be a nuclear state, even if they bargain away some of the peripheral elements of the program.” Therefore, McLaughlin concludes, “We have to decide whether that’s acceptable or not and, if not, to what lengths we are willing to go to reverse it” ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/28/trumps-utterly-unsurprising-diplomatic-debacle/?utm_term=.1473d9efa4cc

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15. Nobody cared about summit while Cohen was testifying

Michael Cohen, President Trump's lawyer and fixer for about a decade, wasn't necessarily a household name before he testified publicly before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. One of the Republicans openly skeptical of his truthfulness, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), said he didn't even really know who Cohen was before Wednesday's hearings.

It's possible that despite all the headlines Cohen has featured in over the past two years — few of them positive — Higgins may not be that much of an anomaly. People were certainly interested in Michael Cohen on Wednesday, though ...

Trump did get a bit of a bump when his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un abruptly ended without a deal on Thursday and during the 40-minute press conference Trump held afterward, but Cohen still stayed aloft. Trump complained about Cohen's high-profiling hearing during that news conference ...

https://theweek.com/speedreads/826366/nobody-cared-about-trumps-north-korea-summit-michael-cohen-testifying

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16. "Now that many of the critics of that initiative have got what they wanted- "

"Now that many of the critics of that initiative have got what they wanted—a tougher approach to North Korea—they have to accept the consequences, whatever they may be."


What Happened in Hanoi?
BY: JOEL S. WIT AND JENNY TOWN
FEBRUARY 28, 2019

https://www.38north.org/2019/02/editor022819/

“38 North, a webjournal that provides analysis and insights into North Korea“