Stephen Nulty 4:49 pm on May 24, 2018
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Thursday 24 May 2018 – Trump calls off his planned summit with Kim Jong-un

NOTE: Sources & Further reading updated on Friday 25 May 2018

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Blaming the “anger” and “open hostility” from statements released by North Korea, President Trump has called off his planned meeting with Kim Jong-un in Singapore on 12 June.  In a letter directed at Mr Kim, the President said that he was still looking forward to meeting Mr Kim “some day,” but that he felt it “inappropriate, at this time, to have the long-planned meeting.”  The full letter reads:

Dear Chairman,

We greatly appreciate your time, patience, and effort with respect to our recent negotiations and discussions relative to a summit long sought by both parties, which was requested by North Korea, but that to use is totally irrelevant. I was very much looking forward to being there with you. Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the  detriment of the world, will not take place. You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.


I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me, and ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters. Some day, I look very much forward to meeting you. In the meantime, I want to thank you for the release of the hostages who are now home with their families. That was a beautiful gesture was very much appreciated.


If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write.  The world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth.  This missed opportunity is a truly sad moment in history.


Sincerely yours,


Donald J Trump

Choe-Son-HuiIt seems that Mr Trump was referring to comments made by the North Korean official Choe Son-hui (right) who, earlier today, dismissed remarks made by US Vice President Mike Pence that North Korea may “end like Libya” if the North didn’t do a deal as “stupid.”  Ms Choe’s comments were perhaps the last straw after several statements from the North condemning the notion that North Korea could follow the path of Libya in denuclearisation.  As I’ve wrote about in previous posts, this angers Kim Jong-un as he sees the collapse of Libya following the Arab Spring and the ultimate brutal murder of Colonel Gaddafi as a bad omen for what might happen to him and his regime if the West and his own people are given a chance.  Ms Choe, who is not new to diplomatic spats with the United States, also said:  “Whether the US will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision […] of the US. We will neither beg the US for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us.”


It seems that Mr Trump now feels after, what he sees as a lack of sufficient preparations from the North for the summit,  the summit in Singapore has no chance of achieving anything and has therefore decided to call it off.  Of course, things weren’t looking to good for the chances of the summit before today anyway so this isn’t a huge surprise.  Despite his reference to the US’s “massive and powerful” nuclear arsenal, Mr Trump has left some room for diplomacy at a future date and his letter for the most part was polite and restrained.  The danger is, if diplomacy doesn’t continue between the US, the North Koreans, South Koreans and others, then we could quickly find ourselves back to where we were before the unexpected thawing of tensions earlier this year.  We may quickly have Mr Kim and Mr Trump once more exchanging threatening and belligerent messages between each other, with the danger that hawks like Mike Pence and John Bolton may hold sway over the President’s response.

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Today also saw Western journalists witnessing the destruction of nuclear test tunnels in Punggye-ri, which is the site of North Korea’s only nuclear test site (as far as we know).  They have been in the process of dismantling the site ahead of the now-cancelled Singapore summit.  It seems that they will continue to destroy the site.  The North has achieved its goal of producing and successfully testing nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States and no longer need to test anymore.  They have their bargaining chip to play against the United States and others.  However, I was reading an article yesterday, I can’t remember in which newspaper – probably The Guardian or The Independent, or possibly on the BBC News website, that this so-called bargaining chip of the North – the possession of nuclear weapons – is not as crucial as many would believe.  The article argued that North Korea’s Kim dynasty survived just fine for decades before achieving nuclear status without the West bringing it down.  The article argued that the West didn’t overrun North Korea or encourage regime change because the North is so close to South Korea – the South’s capital Seoul being only 50km from the border and is easily in range of the North’s conventional weapons.  To attack North Korea or its regime would have been disastrous for the South, which of course is a major ally of the United States.  Furthermore, North Korea acts as a buffer between South Korea (and by default its Western partners) and China and Russia.  Neither of these powerful countries would have tolerated interference in the North and such interference, at least, would have sparked another Korean peninsula war.

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South Korean President, Moon Jae-in, met with his security officials to discuss the cancellation of the Singapore summit and to decipher what Mr Trump is thinking and what will happen now.  Government spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said in a statement carried on the Yonhap agency: “[We] are trying to figure out what President Trump’s intention is and the exact meaning of it.”  Good luck with that.  Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterras said he was “deeply concerned” by the cancellation and added: “I urge the parties to continue their dialogue to find a path to a peaceful and verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.”


It appears that the North Korean’s were caught by surprise by the announcement from Washington.  CNN reporter, Will Ripley, who is in the North reporting on the destruction of the Punggye-ri test site.  He read the Trump letter to the officials accompanying the journalists and said: “There was a sense of shock amongst the people I was sitting with, the North Korean officials.”  It is unclear when Mr Trump decided to cancel the summit but only yesterday he was offering a concession to the North, speaking of a phased disarmament.  This was broadcast on Fox News this morning.  This sudden change of mind therefore seems likely to have followed the comments by Choe Son-hui mentioned earlier in this post.

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The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (above, holding Trump’s letter to Mr Kim)  also blamed the cancellation on North Korea “and the fact that we have not been able to conduct the preparation between our two teams that would be necessary to have a chance for successful summit.”  Mr Pompeo said that the North had not turned up for a logistics meeting for the planned Singapore summit and when they were offered an alternative date, Mr Pompeo said: “We had received no response to our inquiries from them.”


Kelsey Davenport, director of the non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, argues that Mr Trump’s letter is a response to more than just menacing language from the North: “Expectations were overblown for the North Korea summit, and there are legitimate reasons to question whether Kim Jong-un is serious about giving up its nuclear weapons, but Trump’s letter is an overreaction and ignores the role that top officials played in provoking this crisis.”


One good thing to come out of the cancellation of the Singapore summit is that it means that Mr Trump is not getting the Nobel Peace Prize anytime soon.

Sources & Further Reading: