12 June 2018 - Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un's One on One Meeting
Trump and Kim sign document committing to 'work to complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula'
Kevin Liptak (CNN Politics, 12/06/2018)
US President Donald Trump put his extraordinary gamble with North Korea's Kim Jong Un to the test on Tuesday, sitting for unprecedented and surreal talks with the rogue kingdom's despotic leader in what he hopes will amount to a historic breakthrough.
Photographs of a document signed by Trump and Kim indicate the leaders agreed to "work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."
In exchange, Trump agreed to "provide security guarantees" to North Korea.
Read on...
Trump and Kim’s Secluded Singapore Pleasure Island
James Crabtree (The New York Times, 11/06/2018)
On the roads just outside Singapore’s Capella Hotel last Friday, gardeners were replanting the flower beds and laborers were touching up road markings, shading their heads from the fierce midday heat. Two uniformed men stood by the resort’s long driveway armed with clipboards and walkie-talkies, ushering curious onlookers away. “We have a private meeting inside,” one said.
Private, but not exactly secret. On Tuesday, the sprawling complex on Sentosa, Singapore’s “pleasure island,” is preparing to host the most anticipated diplomatic meeting in recent history, as President Trump meets with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. As wild peacocks roam around the swimming pools and grand colonial buildings, the two leaders are expected to talk denuclearization and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Trump doesn’t want to look weak in front of Kim Jong Un. Too late.
Paul Waldman (The Washington Post, 11/06/2018)
When White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow went on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday, he was mad at Justin Trudeau. The Canadian prime minister had said at a press conference after the G-7 meeting that Canada would respond in kind to any U.S. tariffs, and this was apparently a profound threat to President Trump’s upcoming summit with Kim Jong Un.
Trump, Kudlow asserted, “is not going to permit any show of weakness on the trip to negotiate with North Korea, nor should he.” Kudlow continued that “Kim must not see American weakness,” adding that Trudeau “can’t put Trump in a position of being weak going into the North Korean talks with Kim. He can’t do that. And by the way, President Trump is not weak. He will be very strong, as he always is.”
Trump says one-on-one Kim meeting was 'very, very good'
Rebecca Kheel (The Hill, 06/11/2018)
President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have finished their one-on-one meeting and started a meeting with their advisors, with Trump saying the summit is “very, very good” so far.
“Very, very good,” Trump told reporters in response to a shouted question about how the talks are going while walking with Kim from one meeting to the next. “Excellent relationship.”