President Donald Trump is questioning whether to keep his scheduled summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month over concerns he could be politically embarrassed, according to a report in The New York Times.
Trump last week asked aides if he should move forward with the meeting, and on Saturday called South Korean President Moon Jae-in to ask why North Korea’s chief negotiator last week said Pyongyang “would no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-U.S. summit” if the U.S. was “trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment.”
The statement attacked Trump aides, particularly National Security Adviser John Bolton, for promoting “the assertions of so-called Libya mode of nuclear abandonment,” and came after the North canceled a working-level meeting with South Korean officials in protest of joint military drills between Seoul and Washington.
It was a sudden shift in attitude following a weeks-long charm offensive that included North Korea releasing three Americans jailed in Pyongyang since 2017.
Trump and Moon agreed to "work closely" for the success of the landmark summit in Singapore on June 12, which would be the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.
The Times report said Trump’s aides were also concerned how much the president understands about North Korea’s nuclear program, and what is needed to ensure denuclearization, and that Kim might not offer long-term assurances considering Trump’s eagerness to get a deal done.
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