No deal better than a bad deal

Donald Trump haters may be claiming “failure”, but it is hard to argue with the conclusion that as the leader of the free world, he was right to walk away from his summit in Hanoi with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un. As the US President told a news conference: “Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times.” He could not have done otherwise given Kim’s obduracy. Mr Trump deserves credit for showing the necessary statesmanship to put US interests, and those of its allies, especially in our region, ahead of any perceived partisan political advantage he might have gained from concluding an unsatisfactory denuclearisation agreement ahead of next year’s US presidential election.

Unlike Barack Obama when he concluded his hollow Iran nuclear deal, Mr Trump demonstrated that he understands why no deal is better than a bad deal. That is what Kim was seeking in Hanoi, in his quest to have sanctions lifted.

Certainly there are aspects of Mr Trump’s dealings with the North Korean tyrant, dating back to their first summit in Singapore in June last year, that can be criticised. In his anxiety to pin down his “Little Rocket Man” to the denuclearisation deal he failed to achieve in Singapore, Mr Trump has gone too far in seeking to butter up a ruthless tyrant who rules a country that, as Greg Sheridan wrote yesterday, is a “Stalinist prison camp”. Among a multitude of other atrocities, it was responsible recently for the torture and death of US college student Otto Warmbier.

Mr Trump may be criticised, too, for pushing ahead with a second summit before the conventional groundwork had been done by officials. But given the threat posed by Pyongyang’s nuclear advances, particularly to the Asia-Pacific, Mr Trump’s desire to proceed was understandable.

Blame for the failure of the summit lies four-square with Kim, not with Mr Trump. Kim’s apparent belief that he could get Mr Trump to agree to a deal that would have lifted all economic sanctions on North Korea, in return for no more than the dismantling of all or parts of the Yongbyon nuclear complex, an offer previously rejected by the US, was delusional. Kim’s proposal fell far short of America’s demand for complete denuclearisation, which has been and must remain the bottom line for the lifting of sanctions.

Dismantling one nuclear complex in return for lifting sanctions would have left the bulk of North Korea’s arsenal and bomb-making facilities unaffected. Ending sanctions would have restarted revenue flows into North Korea that it could easily have used to improve the bomb and missile delivery technology it already possesses. Any incentive for the North to abandon its weapons would have been extinguished.

The choice now facing Kim is between complete denuclearisation, as Mr Trump demands, and the sanctions impoverishing his people. These must be maintained until Kim recognises the advantages for his blighted nation in joining the 21st century. Mr Trump must remain unrelenting.

The international community, too, must maintain sanctions on North Korea. Mr Trump’s reaching out to Kim has been worthwhile. There have been no North Korea nuclear test firings for more than 400 days. That is an achievement in itself, given the enormity of the threat Pyongyang posed and still poses.