Trump’s North Korea Summit to be Held in…Wait for It, Singapore!

Legal AdviceMay 18, 2018

The long-awaited meeting between President Trump and the North Korean Leader, Kim Jong Un is scheduled to be held in Singapore on June 12. The US president made the announcement public on his Twitter page. In the tweet, Trump shared the details of the meeting and added that the two leaders would strive to make the moment a special occasion for world peace.

Notably, the meeting would signal the first time a sitting US president has met up with a leader from the North Korean nation. The plans for the meeting have been in the works since March when Trump accepted Kim’s invitation to meet up

At one point during the planning phases, the Korean demilitarized zone and Mongolia were considered as favorable sites for the two leaders to deliberate. In the end, they finally decided to settle with Singapore as the ideal location for the meetup.

Top administration officials, including Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, and John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, are understood to be the first to propose Singapore as the ideal location. They are believed to share the notion that the summit location needed to play an outsized role in how the meetup would be seen by everyone around the world.

Optics

The primary objective was to portray a neutral point of view, in both the location’s politics and it’s geography. Getting the country right was essential, thus, nations like China and Russia were absolute no-nos since many view such countries as being overly communist

Other periphery concerns included security. The officials became convinced that the talks would work once Kim Jong Un showed that he was willing to collaborate by sending one of his planes to fly over China in the past week. They seem to have been swayed by the commitment shown by Kim because Pyongyang is about 3,000 miles away from Singapore.

In the last fortnight, Trump had already indicated that the time and date for the meeting had already been set up. However, no concrete plans were made, not until Mike Pompeo met up with the North Koreans. Pompeo and his South Korean entourage were highly encouraged about the talk’s prospects after receiving Trump’s public endorsement while stationed at the DMZ.

The endorsement was via a tweet sent out by the president that conceptualized that fair talks would only be capable if held on neutral ground in a third party country. Reports emerged that many of the aides had been caught unawares since such deliberations had been ruled out. Instead, they had planned to provide celebratory atmospherics in the country once the talks succeeded.

Context

For the location to be locked down, it took a little bit of coercion from the national security advisor, John Bolton, Kelly and Pompeo to dissuade Trump from holding talks in the DMZ. They believed that Kim could get the wrong message if the talks were held there

Following the announcement, the city-state’s Foreign Ministry released a statement that expressed how happy they were to be presented with the opportunity to hold the meeting. The sentiments were further on echoed by the Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, who labeled the summit as a significant step towards the path to peace.

The Singapore announcement came just a day after North Korea released 3 imprisoned Americans following US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s latest visit to Pyongyang. While there, Pompeo also managed to finalize the details on the upcoming summit between Trump and Kim.

With regards to the prospects of Trump and Kim reaching amicable terms, one can tell a lot from the body language exhibited by Trump. At present, he has maintained a cautiously optimistic tone when quizzed about the likelihood they’ll not be at loggerheads once the meeting concludes.