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Costs of Trump-Kim summit
Considering last year’s warlike rhetoric, the summit has created a semblance of peace in the region.
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US President Donald Trump (R) gestures as he and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un arrive for a signing ceremony during their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un became on June 12 the first sitting US and North Korean leaders to meet, shake hands and negotiate to end a decades-old nuclear stand-off. (AFP/Saul Loeb)
M
uch has been said about the summit between United States President Donald Trump and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un in the weeks after it took place in mid-June. Considering last year’s warlike rhetoric, the summit has created a semblance of peace in the region.
The four-hour summit resulted in a four-point joint statement, whose critics argue was far too bland, but whose advocates say was better than war.
However, as veteran journalist Pepe Escobar pointed out in The Asia Times, the crucial detail in the joint statement was America’s reaffirmation of the Panmunjom Declaration, which pledges both the US and North Korea to commit to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This does not simply mean North Korea’s commitment to denuclearization, but also the US’s to scaling down its military presence on the peninsula.
Indeed, as one would expect, the joint statement has no time frame. But Trump’s surprise decision to end joint exercises with the South Korean military indicated the seriousness of his pledge to Kim.
