Why Trump set the bar low on North Korea after Kim Jong-un’s denuclearisation promise went nowhere

President Donald Trump, right, reaches to shake hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un at their first summit. The two meet again this week. Picture: Evan Vucci/AP

Donald Trump has tried to rewrite what success looks like with North Korea as he prepares to leave Washington for his second summit with Kim Jong-un.

Over the past two weeks the president has dramatically dampened expectations for this week’s summit to such an extent that he will seek to portray the most minor concessions from Kim as proof of a successful summit.

The bar for Trump claiming success may be as low as Kim simply pledging to continue to discuss his promise to achieve ‘denuclearisation’ — a promise which has gone nowhere since Kim first made it at their historic Singapore summit last June.

But even this minimal outcome would not necessarily mean that the summit is a waste of time or that Trump’s historic dalliance with the Stalinist leader is a high-profile folly. At least not at this stage.

It is true that there has been a spectacular collapse of US expectations on North Korea since the giddy aftermath of the Singapore summit last June in which the president foolishly tweeted: “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.’

Kim’s promise to pursue ‘denuclearisation’ immediately went nowhere when North Korean officials refused to consider any US demands to begin dismantling nuclear facilities without first receiving some concessions such as an easing of sanctions.

Washington gave Pyongyang hardline conditions, demanding that all nuclear weapons be destroyed before sanctions were eased. Given that any process of destroying Pyongyang’s nuclear stockpile and dismantling its nuclear facilities is a process that would take many years, the so-called policy of ‘maximum pressure’ on North Korea was also an unrealistic one.

As such, North Korean officials have stonewalled, refusing to give the US breakdown of its nuclear weapons and facilities which would be needed to set up a verifiable inspection regime to monitor the disarmament process.

President Donald Trump, right, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un walk off after a signing ceremony during a meeting on Sentosa Island in Singapore last year. Picture: Evan Vucci/AP

Faced with this, Trump has had to make a simple decision — is it worth pursuing his relationship with Kim in the hope that something good might emerge, even if it ultimately falls short of complete denuclearisation?

Trump appears to have decided that lower expectations are not necessarily worthless ones. He made the striking statement last week that he was in ‘no rush’ for North Korea to denuclearise so long as it maintains its existing test moratorium on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

US officials are also reportedly willing to soften their ‘no relief from sanctions before denuclearisation’ mantra, in an effort to obtain at least modest concrete steps from Kim on the question of denuclearisation.

All of this is a far cry from the initial excitement within the administration following the Singapore summit and it has understandably given fuel to Trump’s critics who say he is being played for a sucker by Kim, just as other presidents have by Kim’s father and grandfather.

But Trump is also correct to point out that his unprecedented personal engagement with Kim has led to a substantial decrease in tensions in the region.

Just over a year ago, Kim was threatening to launch nuclear assaults on the US mainland and had tested the country’s first hydrogen bomb.

Currently, there is no testing of nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles while the dance between Trump and Kim continues.

It may lead to nothing, or it may lead to something useful, even if it falls well short of complete denuclearisation.

But the jury is out and Trump is right to at least give it another shot.

— Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia