

Negotiators warn Trump-Kim summit will be historic but probably not productive

John Kehoe
John KehoeSenior Writer

When Donald Trump becomes the first US president to meet a North Korean leader at a historic summit with Kim Jong-un on Tuesday, the two "strongmen" leaders will both want to walk away claiming a win.

Yet no matter what is announced in triumph, veteran North Korea experts aren't very optimistic. They have seen this movie before.

Outside the Trump administration in Washington – and even among some of Trump's inner circle, including hawkish national security adviser John Bolton – there is deep scepticism that Kim will give up his nuclear weapons.


Few American foreign policy professionals have the depth of experience dealing with senior North Korean officials as former US diplomat Evans Revere.

Revere was tasked with setting up the US liaison office in Pyongyang in 1994; led the State Department's Korean affairs desk; was the deputy chief of the US negotiating team with the North Koreans in the late 1990s; became the No.2 at the US embassy in South Korea; and, in 2000, helped organise secretary of state Madeleine Albright's trip to visit Kim Jong-un's father, Kim Jong-il.


Revere tells AFR Weekend the North Koreans' modus operandi was to hold out "tantalising prospects for improved relations and deals on nuclear weapons and missiles" but then, when they sat down at the negotiating table, they wouldn't follow through.

He is not optimistic Trump will fare better than his predecessors, even if the deal-making US president and Kim reach some sort of preliminary agreement next week.

"The North Koreans long ago made a decision that it would suicidal for them to give up their nuclear program they've worked so hard to achieve and regard as their insurance policy against regime change."

Others point that when the US and North Korea discuss "denuclearisation" of the Korean peninsula, they don't begin from the same starting point.


The biggest gap in all of this is how we define denuclearisation," says Victor Cha, president George W Bush's former National Security Council director for Asia and former US deputy head of delegation at the Six-Party Talks.

Denuclearisation has been spoken of by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, South Korea's President Moon Jae-in and China's President Xi Jinping after they met Kim in recent weeks.

Pompeo's stated demand is a "complete, irreversible and verifiable" denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.


Pyongyang's view of what constitutes denuclearisation was set out by North Korea's now-foreign minister Ri Yong-ho on a trip to New York about six years ago at small private lunch attended by Revere, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and a few others.

Donald Trump will make history on Tuesday when he becomes the first sitting US president to meet a North Korea leader.  Delphotos / Alamy Stock Photo

It includes the elimination of the threat posed by the 28,500 US troops in South Korea, the ending of the US nuclear umbrella that defends South Korea and Japan, and the weakening of the US-South Korea defence treaty, says Revere, who has had similar conversations with other North Korean officials over the years.

Pyongyang and its estranged ally China want to stop the permanent deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in South Korea, B-1 bomber flyovers and joint military exercises between Washington and Seoul.

"The North Koreans have told us if you remove those threats it will make them feel more secure and at some point, perhaps in 10 or 20 years, they might be able to consider denuclearisation," says Revere, now a senior adviser at Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington.

Experts place little faith in Kim and South Korea's Moon agreeing to "complete denuclearisation" during their inter-Korean summit on April 27.

 David Rowe

Hence, Trump faces a monumental task to convince Kim to forfeit his weapons in the foreseeable future. Trump risks being strung along like presidents Bush and Bill Clinton.


At the Oval Office beside Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday (AEST), Trump insisted meeting Kim would be more than a "photo op" and that building a good relationship would help achieve denuclearisation. He dangled the prospect of future meetings, including the possibility of inviting Kim to the White House if talks proceeded positively. North Korean leaders have yearned for decades for such a visit to boost their political legitimacy at home and internationally.

Pompeo, who has met Kim twice in Pyongyang and hosted Kim's senior aide Kim Yong Chol to the US last week, has argued that the US is trying to convince Kim that retaining his weapons jeopardises the regime's future, rather than securing its longevity.

"The real threat to their security is the holding on to the nuclear weapons program," Pompeo recently said, backing up Trump's earlier threat to consider a pre-emptive US missile strike against North Korea.

Trump-Kim Burger at the Royal Plaza on Scotts Singapore.  Royal Plaza on Scottts

Pompeo says he believes Kim is contemplating a fundamental strategic shift – a deal to give up nuclear capabilities in exchange for sanction relief and economic aid from the US.

But such a U-turn would clash with decades of deceptive behaviour by Kim's familial predecessors.

In 1994, North Korea signed an agreed framework committing to freeze its illicit plutonium weapons program and halting construction on nuclear reactors. In exchange, the US pledged to provide sanctions relief, aid, oil, and two light-water reactors for civilian use, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Just over a decade later, on September 19, 2005, members of the Six Party Talks – China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the US – agreed to a joint declaration in which Pyongyang committed to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the US asserted that it has no intention of attacking North Korea.


A year later North Korea conducted its first underground nuclear test and test fired seven short, medium and long-range ballistic missiles. The United Nations Security Council responded with trade sanctions.

Kim stunned the world late last year when North Korea tested its first hydrogen bomb and unleashed its third and most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test that flew for 53 minutes and appeared capable of reaching the continental US.

Still, Trump has enormous confidence in his negotiating ability as he approaches the off-again, on-again summit.


Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insists there is "no daylight" between the US and its allies on North Korea.  Andrew Harrer


Cha, who was Trump's original pick to be ambassador to South Korea before being dropped, worries the hasty rush to the summit in the past two months may leave the US side under prepared and open to manipulation.

"This is not normally the way you do summits," Cha says.


"Summits normally, 99 per cent or actually 101 per cent, are scripted in advance," Cha says.

"I would say most US presidents, with the exception of one, would not be comfortable walking into this situation."

Managing public expectations, Trump has downplayed the prospect of quick results.

Trump suggested it could take several meetings to gain an agreement, but he seemed confident that Kim was committed to denuclearisation. "He'd like to see it happen," Trump said.

Trump has softened earlier threats of launching "fire and fury" on "little rocket man". He now prefers not to mention "maximum pressure" to make nice with Kim. The US has deferred a plan to squeeze North Korea with new economic sanctions.

A staff member of a local Mexican restaurant displays pinatas with the caricatures of President Trump and Kim Jong-un, ahead of the their upcoming summit. Wong Maye-E

The rhetorical softening worries veteran North Korea analysts who have learnt hard lessons from giving phased concessions to Pyongyang in the past.

What might an interim deal between Trump and Kim broach?


Trump's commitment to American voters is to stop North Korea having the capability to strike the US mainland with a nuclear-tipped ICBM.

North Korea's ability to attach a nuclear warhead to an ICBM appears only a few years away.

Few experts believe Kim would be foolish enough to launch such a missile at America, because it would ensure the country's annihilation.

Yet the long-range missiles give him a valuable bargaining chip with Trump and have earned Kim a seat at the table with the US president.

Analysts speculate Trump might consider an "America First" exchange of North Korea abandoning its long-range missiles in return for a cut in the number of US troops and US-South Korea military exercises.

"I have little doubt the North Koreans will put something on the table about their long-range missile capability," Revere says.

 David Rowe

Such a compromise would risk selling out South Korea and Japan, a scenario that worries Japan's Abe who emphasises the need for solidarity in demanding full denuclearisation.


Pompeo insists there is "no daylight" between the US and its allies.

North Korea has dozens of short and medium-range missiles capable of pounding Seoul and Tokyo, plus US military bases in the western Pacific.

"That is deeply unsatisfactory, particularly for the Japanese," Revere says.

Cha says: "If there were a verifiable end to the long-range ballistic missile program subject to full verification with international inspectors, than would be definitively better than where we are today."

Defence Secretary James Mattis insisted on a visit to Asia in the past week that US defence commitments in South Korea were not part of the nuclear negotiations. The final decision will lie with Trump.

North Korea will likely seek an easing of sanctions to regain access to the US dollar international financial system and institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank.

Trump and Pompeo are dangling the carrot of allowing a more economically prosperous North Korea in exchange for denuclearisation.

Kim may also push for a peace treaty to formally end the 1953 Korean War. A flexible Trump is open to the idea.

Cha warns that Americans should not conflate Pyongyang's interest in a peace deal with a desire to give up its nuclear weapons.

"I think they want a peace agreement because it validates their nuclear weapons status and ensures the US will not attack North Korea," he says.

John Kehoe

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