Lee Seong-hyon

Opinion | The Trump-Kim summit was doomed by decades of mistrust and both countries’ personnel failures

The failure in Hanoi was both bureaucratic and cultural, leaving the distrust between the two to be resolved on the final day of talks. That it was not will have long-term consequences

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Lee Seong-hyon

Published: 3:01am, 4 Mar 2019Updated: 3:06am, 4 Mar 2019

After Donald Trump walked out of their summit in Vietnam, Kim Jong-un will face a formidable challenge, as he will return home empty-handed. The nuclear talks will face an even more treacherous outlook from now on at the working level, as it is obvious that even negotiations at the top level did not yield anything.

Although Trump left the door open for future possible meetings with Kim, a lot also depends on how Kim felt about the summit and his self-esteem. He lost face in front of the world. That means a lot in a political system like North Korea’s.

The Vietnam meeting by Trump and Kim was meant to add “meat” to last year’s historic Singapore summit, which was seen as symbolically important but lacking substance. However, it fell apart over their fundamental differences as to the scope of North Korea’s denuclearisation and commensurate economic aid by the US.

Given the decades of deep-seated mistrust and the sheer complexity of the nuclear issue, the negotiations should have been seen as a long-haul game. For some reason, however, both Trump and Kim thought a deal was doable, overestimating their personal rapport and underestimating the complexities involved. In the end, both leaders misjudged how far the other would go.

After the collapse of the talks, Trump told reporters that Kim was willing to close North Korea’s major nuclear complex located in Yongbyon, but not other nuclear sites. He said North Korea demanded in exchange the lifting of “all” sanctions. North Korea’s version of the story, explained by North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, differs. Ri said the North had only asked for “partial” sanctions relief, not a “complete” lifting. Details of negotiation glitches will be dissected by pundits in the coming days and weeks.