At every stage of this process, Donald Trump has seen himself as the master negotiator on his way to the Nobel Peace Prize, and at every stage of this process he was played for a stooge.
He got played by the flattery of South Koreans into initiating this summit, he got played by the North Koreans in their false dangle of “denuclearization,” he got played by the Chinese using this as leverage in the trade talks and he even got played by John Bolton, his own national security adviser, whose public comments about Libya cleverly sabotaged a summit that Bolton saw -- probably accurately -- as a looming disaster.
Only gradually, in recent days, did any of this begin to dawn upon Trump. Only gradually did he begin to understand that he was being drawn into a trap largely of his own making, that the stage had been set for failure not success, and that it was far better to withdraw now than to travel to Singapore, greet Kim un Jong as an equal and then experience humiliation on a huge international stage. I give him credit for that much: Finding himself in a hole, he knew enough to put down the shovel
Unfortunately, though, even that has been handled amateurishly. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the summit was announced Thursday morning without consultation or even notification to South Korea, a close ally and negotiating partner with an existential interest in the outcome of these negotiations. By all accounts, South Korean officials learned about the American withdrawal the same time that you and I did, with President Moon Jae-in calling an emergency session of his national security council to deal with the backlash.
And then there’s that “breakup letter” from Trump to Kim. It reads less like a diplomatic statement and more like something written by an angry 5th-grade boy, folded into a sweaty, tight little paper triangle and passed to the crush who had disappointed him. (Yes, millennials, that’s how we used to do it before texting.)
Again, we were always going to end up here, and it’s better to do it now than later. It took six years of tough, detailed negotiations and diplomatic pressure for the Obama administration to reach a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program, a deal that Trump dismisses as insufficient and has already killed. Reaching a tougher deal with the North Korean regime, which already possesses nuclear weapons and regards them as central to its identity and existence, was never plausible without a similar discipline and patience, a similar commitment of time and a similar willingness to work with multiple partners, none of which the Trump administration has demonstrated.
The idea that Trump was going to render all that unnecessary through sheer force of will and charm demonstrates the danger of substituting a cult of personality for a professionally run White House.
About the Author
