Kim’s dangerous about-face

Surveillance showing North Korea is rebuilding its largest test site for intercontinental ballistic missiles is an ominous reminder of the nuclear threat it poses, despite the summits between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. After last week’s meeting in Hanoi ended abruptly without a deal, President Trump said Kim “promised” him “he’s not going to do testing of rockets or missiles or anything to do with nuclear”. The satellite images of the Sohae Satellite Launching Station at Tongchang-ri indicate otherwise.

Following their first summit in Singapore in June last year, North Korea announced Sohae was being dismantled. It said international inspectors would be allowed to verify the process, in a move widely regarded as a significant sign of good faith by the Pyongyang regime. The new imagery shows that “good faith” was shortlived. Work on rebuilding a site that is critical to North Korea’s ability to fire nuclear warheads reportedly began between February 16 and March 2, just before or immediately after the Hanoi summit.

It would be hard to imagine a more perfidious sign on the part of the North Korean tyrant. Mr Trump’s response — that he is “very, very disappointed” — is a massive understatement. Yet again, the man he calls “a good friend” has shown himself to be no such thing. Kim was just as deceitful after the Singapore summit, when he failed to begin the process of denuclearisation he promised Mr Trump he would initiate “the moment’’ he returned to Pyongyang.

Kim’s treachery contrasts sharply with Mr Trump’s well-intentioned but naive goodwill gestures after Singapore, when he cancelled major annual US military exercises with South Korea, as demanded by both North Korea and China. At the time, critics warned Mr Trump was giving away too much. Rebuilding of the Sohae missile centre suggests they were correct.

In the light of North Korea’s unwillingness to denuclearise, Mr Trump must be unrelenting in leaving “Little Rocket Man” in no doubt there will be no sanctions relief for North Korea unless it shows a real change of heart. The US leader’s opening to North Korea has achieved a great deal. The fact that Pyongyang has not tested a single missile for more than 400 days or threatened to rain down nuclear warheads on half the world is an achievement Mr Trump’s predecessors could not match.

But the ominous signs emerging from Kim’s North Korean gulag suggest that for all the outward bonhomie between him and Mr Trump, there is a need to further tighten the sanctions screws to give Pyongyang a stronger incentive to rethink its course.

In Hanoi, Kim demanded an end to punitive sanctions in return for steps towards denuclearisation. He clearly wants an end to the strangulation of his country’s moribund economy and access to Western goods. Yet as he was doing so, he was in the process of reversing one of the very few positive measures he had taken previously. His promise to dismantle his largest missile centre, crucial to building the ICBMs that would be needed to carry his nuclear warheads, was clearly calculated to create the false impression he was willing to pursue genuine reform. Under current circumstances, Mr Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton’s advice about “ramping up crushing economic sanctions” is the best available response.