Trump reaches out, Kim Jong-un rebuffs.

President Trump cancels half of U.S.

military exercises with ally South Korea while predicting a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

But Kim gives the president the cold shoulder.

Tonight, why President Trump sees a meeting with Kim as a win, and how far can Pyongyang’s strongman go in strong army, America’s president.

Coming up on "Compass Points."

♪ Announcer: Support for "Compass Points" has been provided by... the Judy and Peter Blum Kovler Foundation, Camilla and George Smith, the Dorney Koppel Foundation, the Gruber Family Foundation, and Cap and Margaret Anne Eschenroeder.

The Judy and Peter Blum Kovler Foundation.

Upholding freedom by strengthening democracies at home and abroad.

Additional support is provided by Friends of the News Hour.

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Thank you.

Once again, from the David M. Rubenstein Studio at WETA in Washington, moderator Nick Schifrin.

Hello, and welcome to "Compass Points."

This decade has been dominated by COVID, Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran.

So you’d be forgiven if you assumed that North Korea was still stuck as the hermit kingdom, and its dictator was still, as President Trump dubbed him, Rocket Man.

But the man once mocked as Little Kim has emerged from the last few years more influential, richer, better armed, and with more accurate weapons.

Yet, once again, President Trump is appealing to an authoritarian to restart summit diplomacy.

Is that a good idea?

Is there a deal that can be made with North Korea?

And how did bipartisan foreign policy failures help lead to this moment?

To talk about that, I’m joined by Bruce Klingner, the former CIA Deputy Division Chief for the Koreas, now a senior fellow at the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Foundation.

Rachel Minyoung Lee, a former Korea intelligence analyst, now a senior fellow at the Stimson Center.

And Anthony Ruggiero was the National Security Council director for North Korea during the first Trump administration, and is now a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Thanks very much, all of you.

Really appreciate your being here.

Let’s start with President Trump’s declaration to reduce exercises on the Korean Peninsula.

They were cut in half because President Trump said they would have sent a, quote, "inappropriate and hostile message to a", quote, "unthreatening and respectful North Korea".

Bruce, what’s been the impact in Seoul of this cancellation?

Well, it was done without any consultation with the U.S.

defense establishment and with South Korea.

So they’re worried about what other impetus that Trump might undertake without their consultation, whether it’s military or diplomatic.

I thought the announcement really was a trifecta of failure.

Schifrin: A trifecta of failure.

It will degrade allied deterrence against the ever-growing North Korean threat.

It punishes a stalwart ally for a non-Korean-related issue, the not helping with Trump’s failed war on Iran.

And it’s a conciliatory or appeasing gesture to a despotic dictator who’s working very strongly against U.S.

national interests.

Schifrin: And yet Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister said this after the president’s announcement, quote, "we consider it unworthy of comment and have absolutely no interest in it."

But, Rachel, look, I mean, you know, the comeback to Bruce, if you will, is President Clinton adjusted exercises in the 90s in order to try and advance diplomacy with North Korea.

What’s wrong with President Trump trying to use exercises to communicate with Kim Jong-un?

Well, I think the point, the problem here is that the downscaling and the curtailment of the exercises came after the exercises began, which I think may be a historic first.

So I think that sends the wrong message to the allies and especially to North Korea, because then, as we have seen in the Kim Yo-jong statement, she said, "Yes, we realize that you have downsized "and curtailed the exercises, but that’s not good enough.

"If you want a different answer from us, "then you got to do better," by which she meant, "We don’t want to see any exercises," so really giving the North Koreans the space to ask for more concessions.

Schifrin: This debate is we’re going to get at President Trump’s treatment of allies, of course, but also his reaching out to Kim Jong-un, his appeal to Kim Jong-un.

It certainly didn’t start with a willingness to meet with Kim.

So let me take us through the 9-year arc that has been President Trump’s relationship with and conversations, public statements with Kim Jong -un.

Trump: North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States.

They will be met with fire and fury.

Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.

And then we fell in love, OK?

No, really.

He wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters.

We fell in love.

He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons, and I know Kim Jong-un very well, and he’s going to be fine.

As long as we have a smart president, he’s going to be fine.

It’s been a long ride.

Anthony, take us through that evolution.

You were there in the first term, totally.

You were there in the first term in the NSC.

Take us through that evolution.

Ruggiero: Yeah, I think that the president has an unconventional approach to foreign policy.

I think that’s the most diplomatic way to put it.

And his relationship with Kim Jong-un is something that he cultivated in the first term.

I know when we were talking about the exercises with South Korea, I’ve said that this is the least surprising thing that he did.

The only surprise to me is that he didn’t do it last year, because it’s something that he has a strong view on, and he believes that there is a deal that can be had.

I’m sure we’ll talk later about that.

And I think for the president, you know, that Kim is in a very different place than when he first talked to him in 2018.

And so the president is going to have to think through where are his leverage points, where can he build leverage, and then what kind of deal would he accept with North Korea, which will be very different than the one that was on the table in the first term.

Schifrin: For sure, a different deal, for sure, a different country.

But take us into that fundamental approach that the president has.

Why is meeting Kim a good idea?

Why is it a win?

Why pursue summit diplomacy?

Yeah, I mean, I think from going all the way back to President Clinton, and when we started in 1994, that really started with former President Carter.

And many of the ways that we negotiated with North Korea were either with lower-level officials or with China as a carve-out, either in 3-party talks or setting up a bilateral conversation.

North Korea is a country where there is one leader that makes the decisions.

And Trump also likes to have those conversations one-on-one.

So it’s sort of the perfect match of a country where one person can make the decisions, and Trump likes the made-for-TV moment.

And that’s why I think he’ll be the primary negotiator with North Korea.

Many people that work in the White House or on these issues like to say, "I work on issues that the president works on."

This is one that, if you work on North Korea, you can say that, and it’s actually true.

But, Bruce, is there a threat to summit diplomacy?

Is there a threat to the president going right to the top?

Well, sort of a traditional bottom-up approach is that you have diplomats hashing out over a long period of time very detailed issues.

When I worked arms control, it’s very complicated, and yet it resulted in, I thought, very well-crafted agreements with the Soviet Union on a range of arms control issues.

When you just jump in at the senior level, Trump doesn’t have the patience or the time for very detailed, very lengthy, complicated negotiations.

He has said, "I know within a minute if we’re going to make a deal," and he feels he can make a deal with anyone on anything.

So if he feels like, "Yes, this sounds good," in the second term, you don’t have the officials or the advisers who will say, "Sir, that’s illegal," "Sir, that goes against our national interests," "Sir, that really is not a good idea "when we tried it before."

No one is there really to couch him against doing something.

So if you have someone operating really by the seat of their pants, something that North Korea may sound good, you say, "Yeah, that’s good to me."

It’s like, well, that has many ramifications that are not in the U.S.

interest.

So I’m more in favor of a lengthy, bottom-up approach, and then you have the leaders come in either to break an impasse or to sign the agreement.

Schifrin: In the first term, you guys, Anthony, you built leverage.

You built sanctions.

You worked with China.

You worked with Russia.

North Korea is in a very different place today compared to what it was.

This past June, we saw Xi Jinping going to Pyongyang.

China largely is now ignoring most of the sanctions against North Korea.

And then, with Russia, North Korea is now providing troops.

You see them there, artillery missiles to Russia.

And in return, according to Ukraine, Russia has dramatically improved North Korean missiles accuracy.

And now, President Trump, for the first time, we have ever heard a number of North Korean nuclear weapons, 57, even if we’re not quite sure that’s entirely accurate.

But, Rachel, talk about this leverage.

Talk about this difference that North Korea has.

Does this make any summit tree more difficult?

I think North Korea is in a position of strength compared to 2019, when Kim and Trump last met.

We’re talking about a country that has survived years of sanctions, emerged from a prolonged period of lockdown during COVID with a stronger economy.

Its economy has grown at about a 3% range for the last 3 years.

So that’s an achievement.

Also, externally, its relationship with Russia remains very strong.

And you see China now courting North Korea.

How many high level Chinese officials have we seen just in the last 4 months?

Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, visiting Pyongyang in April.

Xi Jinping, as you mentioned, in June.

And Wang Huning, number 4 in the Chinese hierarchy, visiting Pyongyang again in July.

Schifrin: And all going to Pyongyang.

Lee: And it seems, when you compare Chinese and North Korean propaganda about these visits, it almost seems as though the Chinese are more desperate.

They’re more eager to improve relations with North Korea, whereas North Korea’s propaganda is more measured.

And so, from where North Korea is sitting, it can’t get any better than this, from Kim Jong-un’s point of view.

He has a strong relationship with Russia.

You know, the Chinese want to court him.

And now you have President Trump reaching out to him constantly.

So he must think that he has a lot of leverage.

And he’s in the best possible place that he can be in right now.

Schifrin: Andy, best possible place?

Is that right?

Ruggiero: Yeah, I think it is very different than the first term, as you said.

We had the Obama administration.

They basically ignored North Korea for 7 years.

Schifrin: Strategic patience, is what they called it.

Correct.

Yeah, which was basically ignored.

Schifrin: Although they don’t like that terribly.

Yeah, it’s fine.

Ignoring North Korea for 7 years.

And then the last year, they realized it was a big problem.

They actually started to have an impact with sanctions.

Reportedly, Obama told Trump that’d be one of the biggest issues, North Korea, that is.

And then Trump, at the very beginning, started the maximum pressure campaign, and that gave him the leverage.

Now, I think if he wanted to, he could build leverage, similar to what we’re seeing with the U.S.

going after these teapot refineries with regard for Iran and China.

There’s similar things happening now, likely with the North Koreans working inside of China.

You could build that leverage.

But it is very different.

I mean, their relationship with Russia is at a different level.

And as was just described, the relationship with China is also at a different level.

But the North Koreans want sanctions relief.

They always complain about it, but it’s the first thing they ask about.

So that is still some leverage.

And then the real question is, what else could you do to fill out a deal?

So that appeal, North Korea still wants something, Bruce, so you could appeal for a summit.

But bottom line, does this leverage that we’re describing make it hard to even get to a summit that the president clearly wants?

Well, the U.S.

has not had a bilateral meeting or really any engagement whatsoever since October 2019, the last bilateral meetings, which the North Koreans described as sickening.

And since then, I mean, we’ve had to the degree that during the Biden administration, U.S.

officials in the United Nations that use the North Korean mission to the UN as a conduit, they slid a message under the door only to see it kicked back into the hallway.

So this is literally a letter sent by the Biden administration to the North Korean government, which was returned unopened.

Right.

And then President Trump sent a personal letter to Kim, which was rejected also by North Korean officials.

So we really have not had any engagement.

So even something as simple as, well, let’s take measures to decrease the likelihood of accidentally stumbling in a war.

North Korea has rejected those.

As a succession of U.S.

negotiators have said, we are willing to meet anywhere, anytime, about anything with no conditions.

And yet North Korea has rejected that.

So just getting a meeting would not necessarily be a success, but it’d be a first step, sort of a normal first step of diplomatic engagement.

During the October 2019 meetings, the U.S.

officials were like, "We may have disagreements, "but what do you mean by denuclearization?

"What do you mean by a security guarantee?"

And the North Koreans refused to even stipulate what they wanted.

So the U.S.

was like, "We can’t even begin to go back and forth "if you won’t even tell us "your interpretation of some of these phrases."

So that, of course, is t he heart of the matter, right?

So let’s go, let’s just remind everyone, the summits that we had before, we had two summits between President Trump and Kim Jong-un, one in Singapore, one in Hanoi, and then they had a third meeting in the demilitarized zone.

You see it there.

And it seems to me, and you guys have laid this out a little bit, in any summit, the main topics that we’re talking about, denuclearization.

Let’s talk about that in a second.

But there’s also sanctions relief.

Anthony, you mentioned that’s always on North Korea’s top.

The official end of the Korean war, we can talk about that.

And North Korea’s aid to Russia.

So the key question it seems to us to talk about, given North Korean leverage, Rachel, why don’t you start?

Can, should any talks include or start with denuclearization?

This is heartbreaking to say, because I’ve long been a strong proponent of denuclearization in North Korea.

But I think given the reality that it is today, I think starting off or even including the word denuclearization in any agenda with North Korea is out of the question.

That, however, is not to say that we should give North Korea even political recognition of its nuclear state, which is what North Korea wants, by the way, from the US.

You know, there is a difference between accepting it for what it is that North Korea has nuclear weapons and giving it that political recognition.

So I think maybe the best way forward, from my opinion, from my point of view, is to, and I think even the smaller steps like, you know, what Bruce mentioned, even just, you know, restarting talks at any level, you know, even reopening the New York Channel between North Korea and the US, even that would be a big win at this point.

But even, you know, starting small, don’t talk about denuclearization, but, you know, preserve that strategic ambiguity.

You know, we don’t have to tell them that we recognize you as a nuclear state, and why would we do that?

You know, giving away all our leverage, and we don’t have that much to start with.

Schifrin: Bruce, is that good enough, strategic ambiguity?

Well, I think since nuclear is the issue we all want to talk about, but it may be the one you put on the back burner initially.

So as I said before, perhaps confidence and security building measures discussions where, like we had in the Vienna Protocol with the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, where you provide notifications of military exercises so that the other side doesn’t feel like, "Oh, this must be a precursor to an invasion," or you limit the size of military exercises within a certain distance from the demilitarized zone.

North and South Korea had a comprehensive military agreement which did that, and then North Korea violated it, and it collapsed.

It’s not to say "Don’t try it again," but perhaps don’t start with the most difficult issue.

When I was on the arms control negotiation, there were 5 issues we had with the Soviets, and I thought, "Well, why don’t we address those first?"

And the diplomats were like, "No, we save those for later.

"We start with the easier ones."

Now, confidence and security building measures is not going to be easy, but it may be an area where we might see more common consensus than starting with nuclear weapons.

And a big debate amongst Korea watchers now is denuclearization versus arms control, and it’s a bit of a false paradigm.

Schifrin: Anthony, what do you think?

Denuclearization on the agenda or no?

Yeah, I’m a recent convert as well.

I used to call it being on denuclearization island, right, where no one else was around.

I guess you were there as well.

But it’s just not the reality anymore.

I mean, whether you want to talk about a nuclear state invading Ukraine, or you want to talk about the military strikes on a country that was at the threshold of nuclear but didn’t go over that line, I mean, all of the... And there were historical reasons why the North Koreans wanted nuclear weapons.

I think at least a tacit acknowledgement of that, and then you can pivot to the issues that I think for the U.S.

side are more important, getting the North Koreans out of Ukraine, stop helping Russia, all these other issues I know we’ll talk about.

But I think we can put that aside and acknowledge that it’s just a different world.

I don’t think we’re going to get there.

Schifrin: But you could say, "Put it aside," but that’s a big deal, right?

I mean, if I’m in Seoul, if I’m a NPT, a nonproliferation treaty proponent, like even a tacit acknowledgement, hell, even President Trump saying 57 nuclear weapons, this is a different world.

This is not the line that we used to believe was important to draw, not acknowledge this state as a nuclear power.

Ruggiero: But it’s reality though.

I mean, I think, you know, a lot of us have had our heads in the sand and say, "We’re not going to go there," but it is reality.

The North Koreans have had nuclear weapons for a very long time.

And so I think the question for the president and his advisors and his administration is, can they get something that is impactful in an agreement with North Korea and then manage others who might see that as a green light to develop their own weapons?

I think we have enough incentives and disincentives to prevent that.

Klingner: Well, I think sort of the approach is incrementalism.

And I think there’s been a false depiction of previous U.S.

policy as we get everything before they get anything.

And that was never U.S.

policy.

Even an arms negotiator back in the 2000s was saying, "You have to slow the train "to stop the train, to reverse the train."

So the U.S.

policy has always been, it would be incremental steps by both sides.

You look and say, "Well, "they have done it, so I will do it."

And then we move forward.

So it was always going to be a multi-year implementation of whatever agreement.

My criticism was, we had very short cryptic negotiation or agreements that weren’t particularly well crafted.

They lacked a suitable verification regime, as we had with the arms control agreements with the Soviets.

But the approach was always incremental.

Now, a good debate amongst us is that you go for what I call a 100-yard agreement, where you cover everything, and then it’s implemented in 5-yard increments?

Or do you have a baby agreement of a 5-yard agreement?

If it works, then you do another.

It’s a good debate.

But as long as they’re not talking to us, it’s a loot debate.

But, Rachel, what do you think?

I mean, what’s the best approach?

Is there a one-yard or a 5-yard agreement to even start with?

I think even any conversation with the North Koreans at any level is a meaningful first step.

But I think for me, the bigger question is, as we just talked about, maybe don’t talk about denuclearization, and just start talking to them if possible.

But is that going to be good enough for the North Koreans to return to the talks table?

And I think that, for me, is the big question.

And I don’t think it’s going to be, because we have seen just in the last 11 months North Korea’s rhetoric and the preconditions for potential engagement with the U.S.

really hardening, the threshold really going up.

Schifrin: In fact, you told my colleague, the only agreement is one in which we have to give North Korea political recognition even to get them to the table.

Is that a concession worth making?

In late February, Kim Jong-un himself said, "There is no reason "why we cannot get along well with the U.S.

"if the United States respects our constitutional status," by which they mean their nuclear status, and withdraws its hostile policy.

That’s another very difficult one.

It’s a very elastic term.

It means it covers everything, the whole 9 yards, anything they don’t like, human rights discussion, to joint military exercises, to any talk of denuclearization.

So it’s basically anything they want.

Where’s the line here?

Anthony, sorry, short of a summit, what does, at this point, a successfully managed relationship with North Korea look like?

Ruggiero: I’m struck by our conversation, because I think when we evaluate whether we’ve been successful in negotiations is that we spent, and many of us have been inside and outside, we spent a lot of time talking about what we think the U.S.

side is willing to give up.

And then I agree, we need to spend more time of what do the North Koreans really want?

And what can we do to get a successful?

Because we’ve tried the hostile policy language and the joint statement before, and the North Koreans sort of pocketed that, and they were like, "Okay, well, "then we want all this other stuff."

So I think that’s going to be a big part of it.

I know that in the past, we’ve done this incrementally and all that.

If I had to predict, I think the president will just meet with Kim to jumpstart some kind of conversation.

Because I think in the first term, we focused on the summits, but there were lower level, but at the deputy secretary level and secretary of state level conversations.

So a presidential conversation with Kim that jumpstarts something like that, and then a second summit after the midterms or something like that in next year, I think you could see something like that.

Schifrin: Bruce, you get the last word.

30 seconds only, though.

Yogi Berra said, "Prediction is difficult, "especially by the future."

But quickly, is that the optimistic version?

Could there be a summit this year leading to a second?

I think Trump wants a big agreement that he can declare as a success, whether it gets him the Nobel Peace Prize or not.

North Korea is going to want salami tactics.

They’re going to want a prize just for showing up to the negotiating room, and they’re going to want more and more.

It’ll be "Cancelling one exercise is not enough.

"I want more and more and more."

All right.

We’ll have to leave it there.

Bruce, Anthony, Rachel, thank you so much.

That’s all the time we have for now.

Thank you at home for joining us.

I’m Nick Schifrin.

We’ll see you here again next week on "Compass Points."

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Upholding freedom by strengthening democracies at home and abroad.

Additional support is provided by Friends of the News Hour.

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