Day 765: Trump wants to go soft on North Korea

He may be more focused on a Nobel Peace Prize than anything else

Donald Trump is quite the keyboard warrior. From the safety of the Oval Office, he feels free to tweet muscle-flexing ideas and hurl insults. When he’s in the presence of world leaders, however, he turtles. Trump has been feckless when having in-person dealings with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Japan’s Shinzo Abe and many more.

It seems that going in weak is under consideration as an actual game plan for Trump’s meeting with Kim in Hanoi, Vietnam next week. The administration is “weighing backing off an earlier demand that North Korea agree during the upcoming summit to make a full accounting of its nuclear and missile programs as a prerequisite for US concessions,” according to CNN sources.

Just three months ago, Mike Pence called a nuclear accounting “imperative in this next summit.”

It’s especially odd that Trump is considering backing off such a demand since he has routinely claimed that Pyongyang is already denuclearizing. This is a chance to get proof of his claims via an accounting. (Numerous reports and satellite images have repeatedly shown there is no evidence that North Korea is dismantling nuclear facilities in any meaningful way.)

For Trump, a second summit is merely about getting a photo-op and being able to declare some sort of victory, no matter how Pyrrhic. However, aides are concerned that Trump is too desperate for a win, as he was during the first summit.

Inside the White House, some advisers have privately raised concerns that Trump could offer too much to Kim at the summit, which he insisted upon after his first meeting in June garnered widespread media attention.

In that meeting, Trump shocked top advisers by agreeing to cancel joint US-South Korea war exercises, which was seen as a major concession to Pyongyang. Aides have speculated what surprises might be in store this time around as Trump looks to prove that his diplomatic effort is moving forward.

Aides are also worried that Trump’s personal lust for a Nobel Peace Prize will cloud his judgment about what’s best for the nation, leading to impulsive decisions.

[A possible surprise] could include a formal peace declaration ending the Korean War, an option Trump has found attractive because it carries historic weight and would allow him to tout his role as a peacemaker. He’s thirsted after a Nobel Peace Prize, and said last week that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had nominated him for the award, though he cast doubt the committee would recognize him.

Nothing is more par for the course for the current administration than Trump putting personal ambitions over what’s best for the U.S.

765 days in, 697 to go

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