Just posted at The Nation: “The Trump-Kim Talks Ended Abruptly—but Negotiations Will Continue.”
I wrote this from DC after staying up all night watching Trump announce the failure of this go-round with the DPRK. My colleague Kathleen Richards reported from Hanoi. Here’s an excerpt.
The decision to terminate the talks was a blow to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who had told Trump before the summit that his country was willing to act as an economic bridge with North Korea as a way to get to a final agreement.
Moon has also urged that the US and the UN relax some sanctions so North and South can continue their plans, spelled out in their bilateral summits last year, to deepen economic cooperation by linking their roads and railroads, reopening the Gaesong Industrial Zone just north of the DMZ, and other steps.
Those projects have reached a limit with the sanctions. The collapse of the US–North Korea talks is “terrible for Moon Jae-in, who cannot pursue more than ceremonial inter-Korean cooperation for the foreseeable future,” Chad O’Carroll, the CEO of the Korea Risk Group and an editor at its NK News, tweeted from Hanoi just after the talks ended.
