For a property developer-turned-president, the tête-à-tête, scheduled for Tuesday in Singapore, is a long-anticipated test of Mr. Trump’s conviction that he can slice through decades of diplomatic orthodoxy and strike a grand bargain with North Korea, a feat that eluded his three immediate predecessors.
Mr. Trump, current and former aides said, has been preoccupied with North Korea since his predecessor, Barack Obama, warned him in a closed-door meeting two days after he was elected that the reclusive state would be his No. 1 foreign policy challenge. But he has been tantalized by the idea of solving the North Korea problem since long before that.
.. “If a man walks up to you and puts a gun to your head and says, ‘give me your money,’” Mr. Trump said in 1999, “wouldn’t you rather know where he’s coming from before he had the gun in his hand?”
.. Aides say he has mused about the motives of Mr. Kim, who, like him, is a scion born into wealth and privilege, with a skill for self-promotion and an ambition to be a major player.
.. “This is something that Trump has thought about for a long time, even before the election,” said Joseph Y. Yun, a former top Korea negotiator at the State Department
.. If Mr. Kim makes any moves toward disarmament, he is likely to press for security guarantees in exchange. The danger, Mr. Yun said, is that Mr. Trump does not understand the complex dynamics of security on the Korean Peninsula, where 28,500 American troops are deployed to keep the peace in a war that, as the president himself recently noted with wonder, never formally ended.
.. Mr. Trump left little doubt that he would improvise. “It will be something that is always spur-of-the-moment,”
.. The National Security Council has held no high-level meetings to devise a strategy for how to negotiate with him. In part, officials said, that reflects the recognition that whatever his briefing papers say, Mr. Trump will act on instinct once he is across the table from Mr. Kim.
.. Mr. Trump was steeped in the heroics of a Korean War commander, Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The brilliant tactician who led the amphibious assault at Inchon in 1950, MacArthur later clashed with Harry S. Truman, who fired him for insubordination. At Mr. Trump’s school, however, he remained a hero: When he died in 1964, the class organized a tribute.
Giuliani Speaks for Trump. Except When He Doesn’t.
Melania Trump, the first lady, let it be known that Mr. Giuliani has no idea how she feels about Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film actress who goes by the name Stormy Daniels and says she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, while Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, made clear that Mr. Giuliani has nothing to do with North Korea policy. Their pushback came in response to the latest in a series of seemingly off-script moments by Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who has joined the legal team representing Mr. Trump in the special counsel’s investigations into his campaign and associates.
.. Mr. Giuliani has been something of a loose cannon, making public comments that surprised other advisers, were later contradicted or touched on matters beyond his ostensible mandate.
.. Even as she rejected Mr. Giuliani as a spokesman for her feelings, Mrs. Trump did nothing to affirm that she did accept her husband’s explanation of what happened with Ms. Clifford.
.. As for Mr. Pompeo, he looked pained when asked at a White House press briefing on Thursday about Mr. Giuliani’s foray into North Korea diplomacy... “Kim Jong-un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it, which is exactly the position you want to put him in,” Mr. Giuliani said... Mr. Pompeo, who has met twice with Mr. Kim and led Mr. Trump’s efforts to set up a meeting to discuss North Korea’s nuclear program, made clear that he did not find Mr. Giuliani’s intervention helpful.“I know Rudy,” he told reporters at the White House after a meeting between Mr. Trump and Japan’s prime minister. “Rudy doesn’t speak for the administration when it comes to this negotiation and this set of issues.”
.. Mr. Giuliani suggested that the Palestinians should, like Mr. Kim, get down on their knees and beg. “That’s what needs to happen with the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “They have to be seeking peace. You’ve got to change the dynamic and put the pressure on them.”
.. The former mayor told Israeli reporters that he had seen Mr. Kushner’s secret peace plan and that it made “all the sense in the world.”
Richard Haass on Trump’s North Korea Strategy
The planned summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is one of the most anticipated bilateral engagements of the twenty-first century. But as Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations notes, the optimism, while warranted, should not overshadow the hard work that remains.
The North Korea Summit Was a Trumpian Fantasy from the Get-Go
wishful thinking, lack of preparation, exaggerated rhetoric, disregard for detail, and a cult of personality.
.. Precisely what sort of agreement the North Koreans might be willing to reach, and what Kim meant by “denuclearization,” Trump didn’t dwell upon. To anybody who knows the history of the issue, these are key questions. Pyongyang has been saying it supports the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” for decades. As far back as 1992, the North and the South signed a mutual declaration committed to this aim. But the reality has been a steadfast refusal on the part of the North to give up its nuclear program.
.. For decades, Trump has exaggerated his negotiating skills as he overpaid for many properties and pushed some of them, such as the Plaza Hotel, into bankruptcy court.
.. By then, some Republicans were calling for the President to get the Nobel Peace Prize, and the White House was ordering commemorative coins featuring Trump and Kim.