To come this far and to back out would be a huge step backwards.
President Trump is reportedly considering dropping out of the much-celebrated peace summit with North Korea. After a number of missteps in the process, the President is consulting with allies on whether or not going forward is a good idea.
The Daily Mail reports:
President Trump is considering backing out of a summit with North Korea over the increasing likelihood that scheduled talks will turn into an embarrassment for him.
Trump is said to have been weighing the way forward privately, surveying aides and discussing the optics of Kim Jong-un‘s own threats to cancel the June 12 meeting with South Korea‘s Moon Jae-in, according to the New York Times.
Trump is asking advisers and foreign allies if he should call off his summit with North Koreahttps://t.co/KMXHG53cNr
— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) May 21, 2018
This is understandable, especially after North Korea already threatened to terminate the meeting over the U.S. military conducting drills in the area. (RELATED: North Korea Threatens to Cancel Peace Summit Over U.S. Military Drills).
This road was always going to be hard. There’s a reason no U.S. has president has ever sat down with a North Korean leader since the war that tore the country in two. North Korea cannot be trusted. The communist regime in power will do anything to keep its power.
To negotiate with North Korea is to try to outwit the house in a casino – only a few people are talented enough to do it.
For Trump’s part, he’s savvy enough in negotiations to hopefully hold his own. But this is daunting – Trump has tasked himself with cajoling a dictator to drop his only means of defense against the developed world. There’s only so much to offer Kim Jong-un in exchange for ditching his nuclear weapons. It’s not clear the U.S. can offer enough concessions to make that happen.
If the peace summit still happens, Trump will have to cut the biggest, most consequential deal of his life. And he knows it.
What do you think? Should Trump carry on with the meeting? Is North Korea too dangerous to be trusted? Tell us your thoughts below!
