Opinion | What next for US-North Korea negotiations?
- A year after the Singapore summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, talks remain stalled
- Will Washington lower expectations and make the next move?
A year before their 2018 Singapore summit, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un were engaged in a war of words. “Rocket Man” was ready to press his “nuclear button”, to be met by “fire and fury”. Yet, for all its optics, the Singapore summit produced a vague statement containing plenty of pledges, which have not been translated into actual progress on North Korea’s denuclearisation.
At the one-year anniversary of that meeting, we remain stuck in a status quo of stalled negotiations. Did we expect too much from one short summit in Singapore, and an even shorter one in Hanoi? The answer may be a resounding yes. We are dealing with North Korea after all.
While the days of fire and fury have not returned – just yet – US-North Korea negotiations have stagnated throughout 2018 and 2019. The “no deal” of Hanoi only underscored the herculean task that is negotiating with Pyongyang, on the part of the US. The art of the deal becomes considerably more complex when the two sides remain unwilling to compromise.
North Korea has made few concessions since the Singapore summit. The moratorium on nuclear testing has remained, since the last nuclear test in September 2017. That said, North Korea’s recent launch of short-range projectiles in May was a stern reminder to the US that things can quickly revert to the days of frequent missile testing.
Post-Hanoi, Pyongyang has shown little reluctance to hide its frustration at the US’s insistence on complete, verifiable, irreversible, dismantlement (CVID). In April, Kim called for the US to “quit its current calculation method and approach us with [a] new one”, giving a deadline of the end of 2019.
The regime has targeted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, based around the notion that US insistence on unilateral disarmament ad nauseam, is a futile strategy. As was the case during the six-party talks, Pyongyang’s reactive diplomacy shows few signs of slowing: only when the US “gives”, will Pyongyang “give” in return.