The Hanoi meetings ended early when the two sides could not come to an agreement regarding the removal of nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula. The MSM was quick to jump on this as a failure for PDJT. However, failure is not the word I would use.
There is every sign that this is just a stage in getting the North Koreans to understand that they must give up the strategy of confrontation and isolation. Instead, they need to open up to the outside world and to the possibilities that market economies can generate.
Clearly much progress has been made as a result of the two meetings. The possibility of war has been reduced. In 2016 North Korea crowed that the Obama administration’s “strategic patience” policy had allowed it to get armed with nuclear weapons. At the time Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main newspaper, said North Korea needed to develop nuclear weapons to protect itself from Washington’s “hostile policy” toward Pyongyang.
When North Korea held its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9, 2016, the Obama administration responded with the following statement:
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