South Korean President Moon Jae-in has indicated that talks are underway for yet another mini-summit between Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. That would be the third such summit, and would follow on the heels of two previous attempts in which Trump failed to gain concessions from North Korea, but did elevate Kim’s standing around the globe.
How many times is Trump willing to stand next to a murderous dictator and say great things about him? That all depends on how many flattering letters that dictator writes. Sure, Kim Jong Un may have killed his own family members to hang on to the throne, and yes, he may have starved his countrymen to keep himself in luxury, and all right, it’s possible he executed his entire diplomatic corps for failing to come back with a famous victory during the last meeting with Trump … but none of that compares to a “very nice letter” that Kim sent to Trump just last week.
Trump had previously floated the idea of another summit more than two months ago, tweeting about the possibility in April and saying of Kim, “our personal relationship remains very good, perhaps the term excellent would be even more accurate.” That comment came two weeks after an event at which the Trump White House mentioned the possibility of additional sanctions, with Trump then announcing that he was killing those sanctions, the same day—perhaps the fastest example of Trump’s make a threat/withdraw the threat/collect applause cycle.
In May, Trump repeatedly dismissed evidence that North Korea was enhancing weapons facilities and wrote off a pair of missile launches as no big deal, calling them “small weapons.” He also found himself fighting stories at the beginning of that month that the United States had actually paid $2 million dollars for the “medical care” given American student Otto Warmbier, who was returned from incarceration in North Korea to the U.S. in a coma and later died. And in May the U.S. suspended what Trump had declared as the biggest gain from his first summit with Kim: the search for remains of service members lost during the Korean War.
Trump’s first two summits with Kim gained the U.S. nothing, but did go a long way toward giving Kim more credibility as a leader and allowing him to make visits to fellow dictators in Russia and China. Overall, there seems to be little gain from Trump scheduling another visit with Kim … though mid-July seems to be an oddly attractive date for a meeting. Get your commemorative coin order in now.