I had it a feeling it wouldn’t happen. These summits take months of pre-preparations by lower level ACTUAL negotiators. None of this was done. There wasn’t even an agenda. Although, I don’t think that is why Trump is cancelling. Perhaps the stated reason is the actual reasoning — a bit of posturing. On some level though, he must know he is over his head.
This is the “open hostility” statement from North Korea:
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Thursday that it would have second thoughts about a summit meeting between its leader, Kim Jong-un, and President Trump if American officials continued to make what the North considers threats against its leadership.
The North Korean official who issued the warning singled out Vice President Mike Pence for remarks that she called “ignorant and stupid.” In an interview broadcast on Monday on Fox News, Mr. Pence warned that North Korea’s government could end up like that of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the former Libyan leader.
Mr. Qaddafi gave up his nascent nuclear program in the apparent hopes of staving off Western intervention and sanctions, and of negotiating economic integration with the West. But little of that happened, and years later he was killed by rebels after he was weakened in a military action against Libya by the United States and its European allies.
In a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Thursday, the North Korean official, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui, referred to “unlawful and outrageous acts” by top American officials and said that Mr. Pence had made “unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya.”
It seems to me that Pence’s statement was pretty hostile. But the Trump team is remarkably un-selfaware.
By the way, Trump clearly didn’t write this. The substance is Trumpian; the grammar is not.
Meanwhile…
South Korea’s presidential Blue House seems blind-sided by Trump’s cancelation of the summit: “We are attempting to make sense of what, precisely, President Trump means,” says spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.
— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) May 24, 2018
Yup. We all are.
ROK was NOT informed in advance. They had either no notice, or virtually no notice (e.g. perhaps a phone call 1 minute in advance of public release….). This is diplomatic malpractice. THERE WAS NO REASON TO RUSH. I remind, it is 11:41 pm here….Moon had to jerk his cabinet.
— Frank Jannuzi (@FrankJannuzi) May 24, 2018