Trump's North Korea Deal

When I got up this morning, I turned on the news as I always do. I expected it to be dominated by the late-night developments at the summit in Singapore, but instead, it seemed like any other news day. There were certainly references to it, but little actual coverage, at least in the half hour or so I watched. But having now read the document signed by Trump and Kim, I now know why.

First, before diving into my analysis, let me say I am pleased with the way the summit went. Given Trump's crass nature and lack of anything even resembling diplomatic skills, I was terrified of him causing a major international incident. Fortunately, my fears have not come to pass, at least not yet. The summit seems to have gone fairly well, though how well is up for debate.  This summit could be a good first step towards peace with North Korea, but only time will tell this.


Of all the reports coming out of the summit, I have been most fascinated by the document signed at about 1:30 this morning.  I actually watched the signing live, though I hadn’t intended to watch any of the summit live; I went to bed around 1am, as I usually do (I’m a night owl), and my phone started incessantly buzzing with notifications about an impromptu signing.  So I turned on the news, and I waited.  I continued watching until nearly 3am because Trump indicated he was going to speak to the press shortly afterward (though this appears to have been confusion about timing on his part, which is understandable, given that he is probably quite jetlagged), but decided to turn it off when initial analysis of the agreement showed it was likely nothing unique or powerful.  I wasn’t surprised by this, especially given that it seemed to happen out of the blue.  The negotiations needed to denuclearize and bring peace with North Korea will take months, possibly years, meaning there was absolutely zero chance of having any kind of comprehensive agreement at this summit.  But as I had only seen a couple of snippets of the document (it hadn’t been officially released to the press yet, so the media was working with an enhanced screengrab that made portions of it legible), I refrained from judgment or opinion until I could read it in its entirety.

Fast forward to this morning.  The document has been released in its entirety (read it yourself at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/full-text-u-s-north-korea-agreement-signed-trump-kim-n882246), yet the news media isn’t dedicating anywhere near the level of coverage I expected.  Last night’s coverage suggested it was not much different from agreements made by Clinton and Bush, and having read the document, I must concur.  This agreement is barely a page long, and says remarkably little, and absolutely nothing new or unexpected.  As I previously stated, this could be an important first step towards finding peace or at least stability with North Korea, but I am not inclined to believe this.  I see three major problems with this deal, which make it unlikely (though certainly not impossible) that it will make much difference in the long run.

1. This language of this deal is incredibly redundant and vague.  The five paragraphs and four bullet points all state essentially the exact same point over and over again.  The first two bullet points state almost exactly the same thing with just slightly different phrasing.  Where there are points about what we hope to accomplish in the future, these points are stated with no ideas about timing or how we might accomplish them.  There are no specifics about anything.  We have intent without a stated method of accomplishing said intent, meaning we have no reason to expect anything to change.  Trump claimed that this was a “comprehensive agreement,” but there is nothing in this document that suggests that at all.
2. This deal is very similar to agreements made under the Clinton (read this one in full at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework) and Bush administrations.  Those deals had to do more with nuclear power than nuclear weapons, but they were meant to prevent North Korea from obtaining the materials necessary to build a nuclear weapon.  They also contained more specifics and even some timetables, things completely absent from this agreement.  But both failed, for a variety of reasons too complex to unpack in this essay.  As such, we have no reason to believe this agreement will succeed where these similar deals failed.
3. Both parties to this deal lack anything even resembling credibility.  North Korea has reneged on every previous deal, meaning we have no reason to trust them now.  To be fair, the previous deals were done by Kim’s father, but he has not shown an inclination to be much different than either his father or grandfather.  Unfortunately, Kim has no reason to trust us either because Trump also has no credibility.  He has pulled out of multiple international agreements during his presidency, and just days ago withdrew us from a communique signed by members of the G7 simply because his fragile ego couldn’t take legitimate criticism from Canada’s Prime Minister.  Even before he became president, Trump was legendary for reneging on deals, no matter how legally binding they were; if he can’t be counted on to even pay employees and contractors, there is simply no reason to believe he can be trusted for anything.  Trump has no personal credibility, and his actions as president are destroying the country’s credibility.  In short, neither party has any reason whatsoever to believe the other will act in good faith, meaning this agreement is already essentially moot.

These three points make it unlikely this deal will succeed.  However, they do not make it impossible.  Some will no doubt claim that I am just seeing what I want to see because I hate Trump.  While I freely admit to loathing the man, that doesn’t mean I root for him to fail.  I want him to help this country because that is his job, and one of the things he must do is seek peace with North Korea.  I truly hope this agreement is the first step on that path.  But given the points I listed above and the overall history between our countries, there is no reason for us to hold our breath.  We should not put any stock or faith in this agreement.  Instead, we should maintain objectivity and carefully analyze each step as it is taken.

At the end of the day, this document means very little.  It reads like something slapped together at the last minute, which fits with the fact that the entire signing was completely unscheduled (and even seemed to take Kim by surprise).  The entire ceremony was almost certainly done purely to boost Trump’s desperately fragile ego.  Given that his foreign policy to date has been an unmitigated disaster at every turn, he thoroughly needed a foreign policy win.  He and his supporters clearly believe this is a win, but there is no reason to think it is.  The only accomplishment here was that a U.S. president sat down with the leader of North Korea, which has never happened before.  That alone is impressive, though it is interesting to note that the same people showering Trump with adulation for this once eviscerated Obama for his willingness to have such a meeting.

Both Trump and Kim hyped the document as something historical, but there is nothing particularly unique or significant about it, nothing that makes it stand out from previous agreements, other than that the leaders of both countries signed it together.  What is historical is that these two leaders met.  They had a conversation that appears to have been at least somewhat fruitful.  My hope is that this will be but the first of many conversations that eventually lead to a lasting peace with North Korea.  This is what we should be focusing on, not a meaningless document that does nothing but make vague promises.  This document is a distraction, which Trump both wants and needs because he almost certainly has no idea what to do next and because his presidency is floundering.  That these two leaders signed an ambiguous piece of paper holds no importance to history, either now or later.  It is the conversation that matters.

We’ve taken the first step by meeting with Kim and having both sides lay out at least some of their goals.  The real question now is whether the two sides can put aside their overinflated egos so that we can take the next step.