Edward Howell

Biden must learn from Trump’s mistakes on North Korea

(Getty images)

Anniversaries are usually celebratory occasions, but not this one. It’s now been two years since the infamous Hanoi summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, and there is precious little to show other than an important lesson in how negotiations with North Korea can sour. 

Joe Biden is now nearing his first one-hundred days in office. Little has been said about dealing with the North Korea problem. But one thing is for sure: a US-North Korea summit is far from imminent.

Following their first encounter in Singapore in June 2018, it suited Trump and Kim to meet again. For both leaders, the theatre and optics of their gathering was too good to resist a second outing. It is then that things appeared to go wrong. The Singapore statement committed to ‘establish new U.S.-DPRK relations’, seeing the North pledge to ‘work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula’. But at Hanoi at the end of February 2019, there was to be no joint statement nor a post-summit lunch for Trump, Kim, and their respective officials. 

At its core, the notorious collapse of the summit was caused by a lack of consensus on the concessions Washington would offer to Pyongyang, specifically in terms of sanctions easing. North Korea was unable to convince Trump to lift specific sanctions targeting its economy. This has been well-documented by Trump’s former US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, who told Trump to ‘walk out’ if talks did not reach a deal satisfactory to the United States. Although Kim seemed to have been willing to put the Yongbyon nuclear facility on the negotiating table – or at least parts of it – Trump would not acquiesce. He wanted additional facilities beyond Yongbyon, a move unacceptable to the North Korean leader.

Hanoi offers a useful lesson for any deals with North Korea

Hanoi offers a useful lesson for any deals with North Korea involving not just the United States, but also South Korea, especially regarding the peril of unrealistic expectations.

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