Trump: North Korea Will Be Rich, Protected if it Forgoes Nukes

U.S. President Donald Trump predicts North Korea “would be very rich” — and he is promising the Kim family dynasty “very adequate protection” to stay in power — if it agrees to give up its nuclear weapons. If leader Kim Jong Un does not agree to such a deal, however, Trump is warning, the impoverished nations faces being decimated.

The president, in fresh remarks Thursday, surmised that a change of tone this week by North Korea about the planned Trump-Kim June 12 summit in Singapore, could be the result of a recent second meeting between Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“President Xi could be influencing Kim Jong Un,” Trump, sitting alongside Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Oval Office, told reporters. 

If the summit is scrapped, “we go on to the next thing,” added Trump. 

Trump says planning discussions continue between U.S. and North Korean officials, who are behaving “like nothing happened,” despite statements from Pyongyang casting doubt on the summit.  

“They’re dealing with us. We’re working with them,” Trump later reiterated during a Cabinet Room meeting with Stoltenberg and other U.S. and NATO officials. 

North Korea's top negotiator, Ri Son Gwon, earlier Thursday, denounced the South Korean government as “ignorant and incompetent,” the latest in a series of recent inflammatory statements from Pyongyang after suddenly canceling talks with its southern neighbor amid U.S.-South Korean air combat drills.

Asked by VOA News whether the Trump-Kim summit could proceed if talks between Pyongyang and Seoul do not resume, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders reiterated the Singapore talks are only intended to be between the United States and North Korea, but the situation would be discussed with South Korean President Moon Jae-in when he visits the White House next week.  

“Nothing has changed,” Sanders later stated.

Others outside the White House, however, perceive something has changed. 

 “The summit’s dead. There’s no question about it,” asserts Harry Kazianis, the director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest. 

The analyst says both sides probably hit an impasse about what the deliverables would be from the unprecedented meeting.

“I think what the North Koreans did – and it’s pretty smart – they decided not to keep negotiating. They just decided to take it in a more public setting” and scrap the talks with Seoul, using the excuse of the ongoing joint South Korean-U.S. military exercises.

U.S. Defense Department officials say there is no discussion of scaling back the joint drills amid the concerns expressed by Pyongyang.

Asked by a reporter whether there was any consideration of reducing the scope of future drills to bolster prospects for negotiations with North Korea, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White replied, "There has been no discussion of that." 

A member of the Senate’s foreign relations and intelligence committees, Republican James Risch, remains optimistic Trump will meet Kim. 

“It should take place if both parties are acting in good faith, if both parties are able to reach a joint objective as to what they want to do,” Senator Risch told VOA’s Korean Service. “There's absolutely no reason that an agreement can't be reached and it'll be better for everyone.”

North Korea this week rejected any notion of a Libya-style deal in which it would give up all of its nuclear weapons in exchange for economic assistance from the United States and other countries.  

Trump, on Thursday, stated that a Libya model is not under consideration by the United States.

The North Koreans, according to a number of analysts, expect upfront sanctions relief before steps toward destroying any its weapons of mass destruction, while American officials see a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization as the starting point. 

 Kazianis points out that for the North Koreans, “nuclear weapons are all they have that would ever stave off regime change” which is the top fear of the leadership in Pyongyang. 

People around Trump understand the classic process of summitry and the danger of throwing the two leaders to just work it out, according to Kazianis.  

“The risks would be astronomical and if the summit blew up we could be right back on the brink to war again,” according to Kazianis. “And everybody has a vested interest in making sure that doesn’t happen.”

Risch, the Republican senator, said, “The world needs to try this to see if it works. The alternative is unthinkable. The bad ending that this was headed for can be avoided, and indeed, this is about the only street that takes us there.”

South Korea said Wednesday's talks between it and the North were to have focused on demilitarization and plans to formally end the Korean War of the early 1950s.

Sustained hostilities on the Korean peninsula ceased with an armistice, not a peace treaty, signed in 1953 by American, North Korean and Chinese officials. South Korea was not a signatory, and thus a technical state of war persists on the peninsula.