Buddies with kim

Buddies with kim

But Trump’s blow hot blow cold approach is unlikely to bring Pyongyang on board.

The unexpected meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Demilitarised Zone between North and South Korea was made for the cameras. Trump even became the first serving US president to set foot in North Korean territory. The gesture was indeed historic. But it may still not translate into something concrete insofar as the North’s denuclearisation is concerned.

Since he came to power, Trump has certainly changed the conduct of US diplomacy. He has used Twitter to defend decisions and cultivated personal relationships with foreign leaders. He has also swung from one end of the spectrum to the other on key matters, which has been described as his unique way of deal making. We saw all of these at play with North Korea where Trump went from threatening to rain “fire and fury” on the hermit nation to holding two summits with Kim. But as the last summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, showed the two sides remain far apart on fundamental issues.

For, no matter to what extent Trump turns on the charm, core interests of governments don’t change. Kim has seen the fate that befell fellow despots such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and sees nukes as a security guarantee. Washington’s pressuring of Iran over the latter’s approved nuclear programme will reinforce Pyongyang’s wariness. The original sin here may be America’s misguided push for regime change as it basked in the glory of its “unipolar” moment, now history due to China’s emergence as an alternative superpower and Russia more or less joining hands with it. It’s hard to see what would persuade Pyongyang to renounce nuclear weapons now – that ship may already have sailed.