US-NK summit can occur if Trump and Kim have a clear dialogue

Gabriella Pinos/Staff Writer

On May 24, President Donald Trump sent a letter to North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-Un that called for the cancellation of their summit in Singapore on June 12, while also leaving open the possibility of future communication between the two nations.

Following the announcement, it was confirmed on Tuesday through Trump’s Twitter that “top North Korean official Kim Yong Chol was headed to New York for talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,” which will take place later this week, according to Time.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has also said there has been a lot of engagement from the North Koreans in moving forward with the meeting.

Despite this, it is still uncertain whether the June 12 summit will actually take place.

This summit, long-awaited by Trump and the American people, is meant to be a historic moment of reconciliation between both countries.

While its cancellation is disappointing, it is hardly surprising.

If there’s anything that both leaders have in common, it’s that their personalities fill the room whenever they walk in. It’s served them well in their political careers, but listening to the criticisms and opinions of others is just as important as having a strong voice of their own.

It’s the listening part of their leadership positions that Trump and Kim fail to understand, specifically with each other.

Since Trump entered office, he and Kim have been embroiled in a battle of rhetoric, which consists of banter that ranges from playground insults to politically-charged retorts.

In the days leading up to May 24, the back-and-forth burns grew fiercer than ever.

North Korea had first failed to arrive at Singapore for a planned meeting with U.S. officials the week of May 14, according to Reuters. The lack of response from the North Koreans was concerning, but something that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said was “frankly not a surprise.”

Then, Vice Foreign Minister of North Korea Choe Son Hui, after hearing U.S. Vice President Mike Pence compare North Korea’s nuclear state to that of Libya in 2003, called him a “political dummy.” She claimed that America had the responsibility to “meet [them] at a meeting room or encounter [them] at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.”

Whether these statements ring true or not, they were enough to call off the whole summit.

While it’s unclear whether Kim would have agreed to anything Trump mentioned in the summit, the meeting would at least have started a relationship between the two.

It’s an important and historical step up from where America was with North Korea just a few months prior.

South Korean President Moon Jae-In was especially concerned at the news of the summit cancellation. In a statement released on May 25, he said that talks “cannot be abandoned or delayed” to achieve peace in the Korean peninsula.

But with the constant feuding between the U.S. and North Korea, it’s best that the summit remains cancelled — even with the current talks and efforts to go through with it — until further notice.

Neither men are ready to speak with one another, and there aren’t enough preparations for the summit on the U.S. government’s end. The lack of clear communication between both parties was the final nail in the coffin.

However, Moon also claimed that, with a more open dialogue, a successful summit can occur in the future, something that now lies in the hands of Trump and Kim’s attitude. The events of the past few weeks must serve as a warning for both leaders on how to behave when they finally meet.

If the reports of talks between North Korea and the United States are true, then the fate of both nations, and the rest of the world, rests on whether Trump and Kim will learn from their experiences with each other.

 

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Photo taken from Flickr.