Trump landed in Vietnam today for his upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and it remains to be seen if anything substantive will be accomplished by this meeting, but Trump said he was happy with the results before he even left Washington.
If the North Korea delegation was even a little concerned that Trump would play hardball during the meeting, they can rest easy tonight because Trump said he would be "happy" just to maintain the current status quo.
“I’m not in a rush,” he said. “I just don’t want testing. As long as there’s no testing, we’re happy.”
North Korea conducted its last nuclear test in September 2017 and its last intercontinental ballistic missile test in November 2017. [...]
Analysts say the two leaders have to move beyond summit symbolism.
“The most basic yet urgent task is to come to a shared understanding of what denuclearization would entail,” said Gi-Wook Shin, director of Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center.
This highlights the fact that Trump only cares about what people can see and hear, not necessarily what's actually happening.
And what is actually happening? North Korea is still producing nuclear weapons and is taking more steps disperse and conceal their weapons programs according to the United Nations.
The Associated Press obtained a report from the UN Security Council earlier this month that detailed how North Korea commanders are using civilian facilities for missile production and testing.
"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs remain intact," the experts said.
"The panel found that the DPRK is using civilian facilities, including airports, for ballistic missile assembly and testing with the goal of effectively preventing 'decapitation' strikes," they said. It also "found evidence of a consistent trend on the part of the DPRK to disperse the assembly, storage and testing locations."
If I were to make a generous prediction for Trump's second meeting with Kim Jong-un, I would guess it could lead to an agreement on the basic meaning of words or perhaps a formal declaration of peace on the Korean peninsula, but whatever it leads to will be largely symbolic.