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U.S. President Donald Trump’s second summit with North Korea’s Chairman Kim Jong-un in Hanoi, Vietnam on February 27-28 ended prematurely when talks broke down without a deal after Kim insisted the U.S. lift all sanctions on his country. “Sometimes you have to walk,” the president said in a news conference.

President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un sit down to take a few questions from the press before dinner on February 27, 2019. (Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images via CNN)

Click for CNN’s latest updates and analysis and pictures from the summit.

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March 3, 2019 Update

How the Trump-Kim Summit Failed: Big Threats, Big Egos, Bad Bets


President Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in Hanoi. “A proposal to go big’’ fell short. (Photo credit: Doug Mills / The New York Times)

By David E. Sanger and Edward Wong

March 2, 2019

Excerpts

Mr. Kim had resisted what Mr. Trump presented as a grand bargain: North Korea would trade all its nuclear weapons, material and facilities for an end to the American-led sanctions squeezing its economy.

An American official later described this as “a proposal to go big,” a bet by Mr. Trump that his force of personality, and view of himself as a consummate dealmaker, would succeed where three previous presidents had failed.

But Mr. Trump’s offer was essentially the same deal that the United States has pushed — and the North has rejected — for a quarter century. Intelligence agencies had warned him, publicly, Mr. Kim would not be willing to give up the arsenal completely. North Korea itself had said repeatedly that it would only move gradually.

Several of Mr. Trump’s own aides, led by national security adviser John R. Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, thought the chances of a grand bargain for total nuclear disarmament were virtually zero. Some questioned whether the summit meeting should go forward. …

Mr. Kim also miscalculated. He bet Mr. Trump might accept a more modest offer that American negotiators in Hanoi had already dismissed: The North would dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear complex, three square miles of aging facilities at the heart of the nuclear program, for an end to the sanctions most harmful to its economy, those enacted since 2016. …

But Mr. Pompeo, who knew the details of the North Korean program intimately from his days as C.I.A. director, opposed it. The president was told that if he settled for Yongbyon alone, he might appear to have been duped by the young leader of a country renowned for hiding pieces of its nuclear program in tunnels around the country.

Mr. Pompeo said later that Mr. Kim’s offer “still leaves missiles, still leaves warheads and weapons systems” — and a senior State Department official argued that sanctions relief would fund the production of more weapons.

It also would have let the North continue to produce uranium, a key ingredient for nuclear weapons, at a hidden enrichment center near the capital, Pyongyang — one of several suspected nuclear sites beyond Yongbyon that the United States has been monitoring from afar for nearly a decade. …

But soon after the two men arrived at the Metropole, the North Korean leader began arguing for relief from the five rounds of sanctions in exchange for Yongbyon.

While North Korea had suspended operations at Yongbyon under agreements in 1994 and again in 2007, and later offered various moratoriums that were never fully executed, Mr. Kim’s proposal appeared to go further than ever toward dismantling the entirety of the complex, officials said. But the exact terms were still vague.

Mr. Trump countered with the grand bargain. The divide was underscored by the fact that, at one point, he presented Mr. Kim with a document laying out his definition of denuclearization.

Mr. Kim objected that there was not enough trust between the two countries to give up everything at once. …

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October 6, 2019 Update

US and North Korea Break Off Talks for Now, Officials Say

By Kevin Bohn, Greg Clary, Jennifer Hansler, Jennifer Deaton, and Kate Sullivan

October 6, 2019

Excerpt

The working-level talks between the United States and North Korea in Stockholm, Sweden, have concluded for the time being, US and North Korean officials said Saturday.

Painting different pictures of the meeting, US officials said they “had good discussion” while North Korea’s top negotiator blamed the ended talks on Washington.

“The break-up of the negotiation without any outcome is totally due to the fact that the US would not give up their old viewpoint and attitude,” Kim Myong Gil, North Korea’s top negotiator, said.

But the State Department disagreed with Kim’s characterization Saturday, saying his comments “do not reflect the content or the spirit of today’s 8½ hour discussion.”

“In the course of the discussions, the U.S. delegation reviewed events since the Singapore summit, and discussed the importance of more intensive engagement to solve the many issues of concern for both sides,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

“The U.S. brought creative ideas and had good discussion with its DPRK counterparts,” she said.

The US said it previewed “a number of new initiatives that would allow us to make progress in each of the four pillars of the Singapore joint statement.”

Kim earlier told reporters in Stockholm that “the negotiations have not fulfilled our expectation and finally broke up.”

Kim said the talks were “held at a crucial moment when the situation on the Korean peninsula stands at the crossroads of dialogue or confrontation.” Negotiations on denuclearization have stalled since February — when President Donald Trump cut short his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi. Trump left the meeting with no joint agreement after Kim insisted all US sanctions be lifted on his country.

The two leaders last met in June in the Korean Demilitarized Zone where they agreed to revive staff-level talks. …

 


 

Related interest: Kim Jong-un PowerPoint presentation

DPRK-USA_Hanoi-Summit-billboard

On February 27-28, 2019, U.S. president Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held a second summit meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam.

PowerPoint presentation: Kim Jong Un Psychological Profile

 

Personality-Dynamics

 


 

Related interest: Research reports

The Leadership Style of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Working paper, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, Collegeville and St. Joseph, Minn., June 10, 2018. Abstract and link for full-text (17 pages; PDF) download at Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/psychology_pubs/120/

The Leadership Style of U.S. President Donald J. Trump. Working paper, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, January 2017. Abstract and link for full-text (14 pages; PDF) download at Digital Commons: http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/psychology_pubs/107/

The Personality Profile of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. Working paper, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, Collegeville and St. Joseph, Minn., April 1, 2018. Abstract and link for full-text (32 pages; PDF) download at Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/psychology_pubs/119/

The Political Personality of U.S. President Donald J. Trump. Working paper, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics, St. John’s University/College of St. Benedict, October 2016. Abstract and link for full-text (31 pages; PDF) download at Digital Commons: http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/psychology_pubs/103/

 


 

Topical reports on this site

The Personality Profile of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un

ISPP-2018_Kim-Jong-Un_poster
Click on image for larger view

President Donald Trump to Meet North Korea’s Kim Jong-un

Combination photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump

“He’s got a great personality. He’s a funny guy, he’s very smart, he’s a great negotiator.”

— President Donald Trump, on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, June 12, 2018.





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