Nicholas Kristof: “President Trump reportedly has accepted an invitation from Kim Jong-un for a summit in Pyongyang, North Korea’s grand capital of empty avenues. It’s … a dangerous gamble and a bad idea.”
“What North Korean leaders have craved for many years is international respect and credibility; they want to be treated as equals by the Americans, so a scene of Trump and Kim standing side by side would constitute a triumph for Pyongyang.”
“So a visit by a sitting American president to North Korea would be a huge gift to Kim, and it’s puzzling that our Great Dealmaker should give up so much right off the bat.”
“The more normal procedure would be, first, to negotiate our way toward the summit and make sure that we extract every possible concession, and, second, make sure that the summit serves the larger goals of resolving the nuclear crisis.”
“Frankly, another concern about a Trump-Kim summit is that our president will impetuously agree to some harebrained scheme to get a deal. (‘Withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea and from Okinawa? No problem, if you’ll build a wall for me.’)”
