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Trump-Kim summit
This Week in AsiaGeopolitics

Singapore’s Trump-Kim summit: North Korea wins first round 3-2

Pyongyang is top goal scorer in the warm-up to the Singapore match-up, having undermined sanctions, gained respect and proved a point about nuclear weapons. But there’s everything still to play for

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A coin celebrates the upcoming US-North Korea summit. Photo: AFP
Denny Roy
The actual meeting of US President Donald Trump and North Korean paramount leader Kim Jong-un marks the end of what could be called the pre-summit period. In a sense this was the first round of negotiation.
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Because much of this negotiation was public, whether the United States or North Korea won the pre-summit negotiations can be assessed by comparing each side’s agenda against the concessions made by the other side. Both governments had their respective victories, but Kim was the bigger winner.

WATCH: Trump confirms Singapore summit with Kim on June 12

Kim’s agenda includes two immediate goals: to alleviate the threat of a US preventive military strike against nuclear and missile facilities on North Korean territory, and to get the international community to lift economic sanctions against North Korea. Kim also hopes to earn international prestige for his government; to gain recognition, particularly from Washington, of North Korea as a nuclear weapon state; to move US troops off the Korean Peninsula; and to generally weaken the US-South Korea alliance.

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Trump’s agenda starts with the overriding US interest in persuading North Korea to halt and dismantle its missile and nuclear bomb programmes. Trump also wants to emerge from the negotiations looking like the master deal maker he claims to be, solving a tough problem his predecessors could not. He clearly likes the idea of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, telling reporters “everyone thinks” he deserves it.

Kim’s biggest success this year was getting the meeting with Trump. And he may have achieved this under false pretences.

WATCH: Singapore summit back on: is Trump ignoring Kim’s history?

US policy since the Obama Administration was that Washington would not negotiate with North Korea unless the Pyongyang government agreed beforehand the topic would be denuclearisation. The negotiation would be over the price America would pay North Korea to give up its missiles and nuclear bombs. No negotiations occurred because Pyongyang repeatedly said it would never yield its nuclear weapons, or would do so only if America denuclearised first.

Trump-Kim summit: White House confirms leaders will meet on resort island of Sentosa

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