Part of President Donald Trump’s genius is to create incredibly low expectations for himself and then impress the world by exceeding them. This dynamic was on display in the summit in Singapore where Trump met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Compared to last year, when Trump and Kim were threatening nuclear war, this summit is a vast improvement. It’s obviously better for the United States and North Korea to be talking than to be threatening to destroy each other. Given that North Korea is a nuclear power, normalizing relations might be the best policy choice the United States has.
Still, in terms of actual positive outcomes, the Singapore summit was little more than a vacuous photo op. Expert opinion on the summit emphasizes how little was achieved.
Bruce Klingner is the North Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation:
This is very disappointing. Each of the four main points was in previous documents with NK, some in a stronger, more encompassing way. The denuke bullet is weaker than the Six Party Talks language. And no mention of CVID, verification, human rights.
— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) June 12, 2018
Lawrence Freedman is emeritus professor of War Studies at King’s College London, and wrote a valuable thread which is worth reading in full:
Viewed in the light of past diplomacy around NK’s nuclear programme there is a strong sense of déjà vu: warm declarations about a non-nuclear future without any clear steps showing how it will be reached. This has been going on for a quarter of a century. 1/
— Lawrence Freedman (@LawDavF) June 12, 2018
Equally valuable is the thread by James Acton of the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Program:
<Thread>Diplomacy with North Korea has reduced the risk of war. But the summit—and particularly its immediate aftermath—was a farce, and the respite is only likely to be temporary. (1/14)
— (((James Acton))) (@james_acton32) June 12, 2018
Although coming from different points of the political spectrum, all these experts agree that this summit achieved little.