Making It to a US-North Korea Summit

U.S. talks with North Korea are always a tangle of traps. In the first weeks since the North Korean invitation to a historic summit, U.S. President Donald Trump has exacerbated the risks by accepting the North Korean invitation outright, making overconfident statements, and dismissing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Consider how the leaders of North Korea and the United States have begun preparing the ground for a summit. As this issue went to print, North Korea had not yet publicly confirmed any of the assurances South Korea conveyed on its behalf to Trump. By refraining from repeating its commitment to denuclearize, North Korea affords itself several options later to walk back or obfuscate the commitment at an advantageous juncture.

Compare early U.S. statements on the summit. The White House press secretary and other senior officials have made contradictory statements about whether “concrete steps” would be required prior to talks, further depleting administration credibility. The president is falling into overconfidence, tweeting that he believes North Korea will “honor” its “commitment” to refrain from missile tests until and through summit talks. Trump has added: “I think we will have tremendous success.”

There are several risks in this kind of public overconfidence. One is that Trump will be personally offended or embarrassed if talks stall or head in a different direction, raising the risk that he could lash out – at either the United States’ ally, South Korea, for arranging the summit in the first place, or at Kim Jong-un, for hoodwinking him.

More prosaically, overconfidence makes it difficult for the United States to nail down the terms of a summit. It cannot force North Korea to accept detailed terms for a nuclear and missile test freeze or to lay out an acceptable agenda that includes U.S. aims if Pyongyang thinks Trump has his heart set on success at any cost.

Above all, overconfidence will allow the pursuit of the perfect denuclearization deal to become the enemy of the good, which could include a military-to-military communications agreement, an extended testing freeze, an agreement to refrain from overflying Japan, measures to reduce the risk of conventional conflict or accidents, or other incremental steps.

What does North Korea hope to accomplish with the talks? Five interests point to five different traps that U.S. diplomats will have to avoid.

First, Kim is looking to secure a propaganda victory by meeting on equal footing with an American president. Though it will not legitimate North Korea as a responsible nuclear power in the eyes of the rest of the world, it will certainly help to solidify Kim’s rule internally. Pyongyang has long sought a summit on equal terms as nuclear powers with the U.S. president and now it seemingly has it.

This mine has already been set off. By accepting Kim’s invitation outright, Trump has blown his chance to impose conditions on the summit. For example, it would have been a real opportunity to secure the release of three Americans languishing in North Korean gulags. As of this writing, negotiations are reportedly underway to that end, but nothing is guaranteed until the three are back on U.S. soil. 

Second, Pyongyang will attempt to loosen the grip of international sanctions, which have increased significantly over the last year. Though this pressure is probably never going to prove sufficient to force Kim to dispense with the existential assurances his nuclear arsenal provides, there is strong evidence that China has improved the implementation of UN Security Council resolution requirements and slowed trade in oil, coal, textiles, and seafood and is constraining the North Korean economy.

If Kim can cause Trump to walk away from the table first, Kim may argue that he has done all he can and that it is Trump that stands in the way of an agreement. Beijing may calculate it is pointless to strictly enforce sanctions if there is no chance of negotiated denuclearization.

Third, Kim retains an interest in exacerbating friction in the U.S.-South Korea relationship, with the ultimate objective of breaking the alliance. After a year of Trump’s insults, trade policy braggadocio, and neglect, there is serious mistrust and policy cleavage between Washington and Seoul at the highest levels.

Imagine Trump sits down with Kim expecting to receive assurances of denuclearization only to find Kim denying that he ever made such a promise. Perversely, Trump may feel misled by South Korea, rather than the North.

Or imagine Kim offers a vague commitment that his country will denuclearize over the long term and a reasonable proposal to reduce tensions in the near term. If Trump feels betrayed or impatient and walks away from the table, the United States could find itself blamed for the collapse and spiraling toward war.

North Korea will also attempt to degrade the U.S.-South Korea military posture. Pyongyang’s diplomats will almost certainly demand the end to what it calls the “hostile policy” as a step toward denuclearization. This could lead the regime to demand anything from a complete U.S. troop withdrawal to geographical limits on bomber flights.

North Korea may attempt to maneuver Trump into surrendering too much on this front. During the campaign, Trump, speaking of U.S. allies abroad, said, “if they don’t take care of us properly… they’re going to have to defend themselves.” These kinds of statements have a way of resurfacing in the Trump administration. If they surfaced at the negotiating table, it could be catastrophic to the ability of the alliance to deter North Korea and stand up to China.

Fifth, North Korea may have calculated that Trump really could start a war. If so, it would be in Pyongyang’s interest to stall for time and run out the clock on Trump’s term in office. It took about two years of grueling negotiations before the Iran nuclear agreement was signed, and that was a far simpler technical challenge with a non-nuclear country.

Kim Jong-un may calculate that embarrassing an American president is an effective way to gain the upper hand in talks. Having failed to specify the terms of North Korea’s voluntary missile test freeze, North Korea could undertake static engine tests, fire rocket artillery, or eject a submarine-launched ballistic missile, and then claim that these actions were not disallowed under its understanding of the freeze.

An agreement reached under the Obama administration in February 2012 fell apart almost immediately, after North Korea launched a satellite that April. The United States thought space launch activities were covered under the deal; Pyongyang disagreed. A similar incident could happen again: North Korea is working on a new space launch vehicle.

If North Korea conducts activities that the United States considers to be a bridge to far – or a sign of bad faith – the U.S. delegation would be put in the difficult position of having to decide whether to abandon talks or continue and accept the tests – perhaps even as it is en route to a meeting.

North Korea will ruthlessly pursue its objectives in talks and resolutely resist material steps toward denuclearization in the near term. This doesn’t mean a summit is a bad idea; it means that it must be managed with extreme care. If Trump feels embarrassed, outmaneuvered, or stalled, he could step from the negotiating table directly to the brink of war.

The ongoing chaos in the country’s foreign policy apparatus will not help. Trump’s abrupt firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, along with the departure of Ambassador Joseph Yun, the former special representative for North Korea policy, deprive the administration of their foremost advocates for diplomacy with North Korea.

As Mike Pompeo, a relative hardliner, is nominated and confirmed into his new job as Tillerson’s replacement, State Department experts will have even more difficulty communicating information and options to the White House. Even without Yun and with a vacant ambassadorial office in Seoul, there is considerable expertise within State. Drawing on their experience and planning will be critical to navigating the minefield of talks. Pompeo’s willingness to politicize intelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency does not inspire confidence that he would insist on an expert negotiating team for North Korea.

Some consequences of the ongoing chaos will be unavoidable. The Tillerson transition more or less ends any possibility of a useful preparatory meeting between the foreign ministers before May, which could help nail down an agenda for the summit. But moving rapidly to field an expert team will help to manage the risks. The U.S. chargé d’affaires in Seoul, Mark Knapper, and Mark Lambert on the Korea desk at State are just two names that would merit consideration for an elevated rule during this extraordinary period.

The administration should also appoint a high-level special envoy to North Korea to lead preparatory meetings. A person like Robert Gates, Condoleezza Rice, or even Henry Kissinger could help to build leverage for the president. The April meeting between the South and North Korean leaders will be a crucial opportunity to gain more information about Pyongyang’s position, but it is critical that a U.S. envoy nails down an agreement on the agenda, test freeze, and denuclearization to limit each of these risks.

Trump has before him a major opportunity, but converting opportunity into an advantageous deal will be no simple task. The moment calls for professionalism, technical expertise, and sweating the details – and there’s little time to lose.