[Over nearly five hours at the secluded and opulent Capella resort, Trump and Kim sought to establish what the president called “a very special bond” through intimate meetings, including a stroll that culminated with Trump giving Kim a peek inside the armored presidential limousine.]
BY DAVID NAKAMURA, PHILIP RUCKER, ANNA
FIFIELD AND ANNE GEARAN
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US
President Donald Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un
during
the summit in Singapore
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SINGAPORE —
President Trump concluded a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong
Un here Tuesday by sketching a path to prosperity for the isolated nation. But
it remained highly uncertain whether the young dictator would embrace the offer
by agreeing to eliminate his nuclear arsenal.
Over
nearly five hours at the secluded and opulent Capella resort, Trump and Kim
sought to establish what the president called “a very special bond” through
intimate meetings, including a stroll that culminated with Trump giving Kim a
peek inside the armored presidential limousine.
Later,
the two sat next to each other to sign a joint declaration pledging to work
toward peace and to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
“We’re
ready to write a new chapter between our nations,” Trump said at a news
conference, calling his meeting with Kim “honest, direct and productive.”
“The
past does not have to define the future,” he added. “Yesterday’s conflict does
not have to be tomorrow’s war. As history has proved over and over, adversaries
can become friends.”
Yet
despite the bonhomie, the agreement, just over a page long, was perhaps most
notable for its lack of details. Kim made no specific commitment to relinquish
his nuclear arms and ballistic missiles and gave no timeline for which he would
do so. Rather, he committed solely to abiding by a mostly symbolic agreement he
had made during a summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April.
Other
highly sensitive matters, including the North’s brutal human rights abuses and
the economic sanctions imposed by the United States, were not addressed. Trump
said he would keep the sanctions in place until the North demonstrated steps
toward disarmament.
Asked
why his negotiating team had not locked down specific promises from Pyongyang,
Trump replied: “Because there’s no time. I’m here one day . . . But
the process is now going to take place.”
[‘A
great honor’: In a bid for history, Trump flatters North Korea’s totalitarian
leader]
Trump
said that aides would begin additional talks soon and that he would potentially
invite Kim to the White House and be open to visiting Pyongyang “at the
appropriate time.” Yet he also acknowledged that disarmament would not come
quickly.
“It
does take a long time to pull off complete denuclearization. It takes a long
time,” Trump said. “Scientifically, you have to wait certain periods of time,
and a lot of things happen. But despite that, once you start the process, it
means it’s pretty much over. Can’t use them, that’s the good news. That’s going
to start very soon.”
The
result was a diplomatic breakthrough after decades of hostility, but no
guarantee that North Korea will follow through. Trump grounded his optimism in
his confidence that he can read an adversary and that his gamble of attempting
to create a rapport with an autocrat would pay off.
Trump
said Kim agreed to shutter a missile engine testing site and to allow the
return of the remains of American service members lost in North Korea during
the Korean War more than 60 years ago.
Kim,
in turn, got at least one major benefit upfront. Trump announced that he will
order an end to regular “war games” that the United States conducts with ally
South Korea, a reference to annual joint military exercises that are an
irritant to North Korea.
Trump
called the exercises “very provocative” and “inappropriate” in light of the
optimistic opening he sees with North Korea. Ending the exercises also would
save money, he said.
The
United States has conducted such exercises for decades as a symbol of unity
with Seoul and previously rejected North Korean complaints as illegitimate.
Ending them would be a significant political benefit for Kim — and for China,
which has long supported such an outcome — but Trump insisted that he did not
give up leverage.
“I
think the meeting was every bit as good for the United States as it was for
North Korea,” he said.
[Trump-Kim
summit: Trump says ‘we have developed a very special bond’ at end of historic
meeting]
Although
Trump had spent Monday calling Moon and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to
consolidate support, Moon’s government seemed blindsided by Trump’s unilateral
decision to end the joint military exercises. A spokesman for Moon said the
government needed more information “to understand” Trump’s intentions.
At the
U.S. military command in South Korea, officials also reacted with uncertainty.
Col. Jennifer Lovett, a spokeswoman, said the command “has received no updated
guidance on execution or cessation of training exercises.”
Those
exercises include the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian drills scheduled for August.
“We
will continue with our current military posture” until further notice, she
said.
The
outcome came after an extraordinary two days in which Trump and Kim arrived in
this Southeast Asian city-state in a strikingly lopsided power dynamic — Trump,
71, the leader of the world’s richest and most powerful nation, and Kim, 34,
the ruler of the world’s most isolated and repressive country.
Yet it
was Kim who stole the show in the hours before the summit, taking a surprise
nighttime tour of Singapore’s gleaming waterfront, a glass and steel testament
to wealth and prosperity that offered a glimpse of what is possible if he
chooses to open to the world.
Cheered
on by crowds of onlookers, Kim toured the Marina Bay Sands, a three-tower
complex with a replica of a cruise ship spanning the 57th floor, strolled along
the architecturally stunning Jubilee Bridge and took a selfie with Singapore’s
foreign minister.
By the
time he arrived at the Capella the following morning, Kim had begun to
transform his image, and pictures of his tour were plastered on the news pages
of his state-run media in North Korea. As Trump and Kim approached each other
from opposite wings of a makeshift stage, complete with a red carpet and a row
of alternating American and North Korean flags, Kim had established himself as
an equal, for one day at least, to the most powerful leader on Earth.
[The
Daily 202: In Kim he trusts. Trump sounds naive after meeting with North
Korea’s leader.]
Trump
bristled when asked whether he had offered Kim’s brutal regime, which has sent
as many as 100,000 North Koreans to hard-labor camps, validation on the world
stage.
“I’ll
do whatever it takes to make the world a safer place,” the president responded.
“If I have to say I’m sitting on a stage with Chairman Kim and that’s going to
get us to save 30 million lives, could be more than that, I’m willing to sit on
the stage.”
But
Trump faced skepticism from Democrats and some Republicans, as well as former
U.S. officials who warned of past empty pledges from North Korea.
“U.S.
gives up one of our biggest negotiating chips — military exercises,” Sen. Chris
Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on Twitter. “North Korea ends up BACKTRACKING on
previous promises on denuclearization.”
Sen.
Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) cautioned that the summit “must be followed by multiple
meetings to test North Korea’s promises of denuclearization, which they have
made in the past and then repeatedly violated.”
[Reporters
thought this video was North Korea propaganda. It came from the White House.]
Kim
appeared alternately amused and implacable, speaking through an interpreter and
flanked by aides, including his sister, Kim Yo Jong, as well as Foreign Affairs
Minister Ri Yong Ho and Kim Yong Chol, a vice chairman of the Central Committee
of the ruling Workers’ Party.
In a
sign that Kim remains paranoid about his safety, a North Korean official
inspected the pen that was placed in front of Kim to sign the joint declaration
with Trump, rubbing it with a gloved hand. When his sister placed the document
in front of him, however, she also handed him a different pen to use — and took
it back when Kim was done.
“We
overcame all kinds of skepticism and speculations about this summit,” Kim said,
“and I believe that this is a good prelude for peace.”
“We
will solve it,” Trump replied. “We will be successful.”
Trump
came away clearly buoyed by the interactions with the leader of a brutal regime
whom the president referred to derisively last year as “Little Rocket Man.”
[The
Fix: Trump’s news conference in Singapore, annotated]
The
president opened his news conference by playing, on a pair of movie
theater-size screens, a dramatic video with voiceovers in Korean and English.
The video offered Kim a stark choice between military conflict on the Korean
Peninsula and the kind of robust economic development that has turned
neighboring South Korea into a wealthy nation.
“Two
leaders, one destiny,” the narrator proclaims, over images of Trump and Kim, “a
story about a special moment in time, when a man is presented with one chance
that may never be repeated. What will he choose?”
It was
a choice that Trump, who has elevated North Korea to his top foreign policy
priority, hoped Kim would consider an easy one, although he showed a moment of
self-doubt.
“I
think he’s going to do these things,” Trump said. “I may be wrong. I may stand
before you in six months and say, ‘Hey, I was.’ ”
He
paused for a moment, then added: “I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that. I’ll
find some kind of excuse.”
Carol
Morello in Washington and Brian Murphy in Seoul contributed to this report.