President Trump plans to impose “over 300 massive, in some cases, sanctions” on North Korea if that country fails to advance the cause of peace and denuclearization when Trump meets next week with leader Kim Jong Un.
“We have a list of over 300 massive, in some cases, sanctions to put on North Korea,” Trump told reporters during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “And I’ve decided to hold that until we can make a deal, because I really believe there’s a potential to make a deal, and I just don’t think it’s nice going in under those circumstances.”
Trump is scheduled to meet Kim in Singapore next week, the first ever face-to-face meeting between an American president and a leader of the communist regime. A successful meeting could set the stage for the dismantling of the North Korean nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program, though some experts believe Kim is using the summit to weaken international sanctions and the threat of a military attack in the final stages of his nuclear weapons research.
“Maximum pressure is absolutely in full effect,” Trump said. “We don’t use the term anymore because we’re going into a friendly negotiation.”
Trump said that the two sides could “absolutely” sign a peace deal next week to end formally the Korean conflict. “It sounds a little bit strange, but that’s the easy part,” he said. “The hard part starts after that.”
He offered one simple way to discern how the denuclearization discussion unfolded. “If you hear me saying ‘we’re going to use maximum pressure,’ you’ll know the negotiation did not do well,” Trump said. “Frankly. there’s no reason to say it [now].”
Trump has alternated between a hardline and conciliatory tone with Kim. Trump canceled the summit dramatically while the two sides traded insults, but credited the dictator on Thursday with “want[ing] to see something incredible happen for the people of North Korea.” That rhetoric has diminished expectations for the summit in some quarters, however, as Kim has maintained publicly the regime’s commitment to their nuclear weapons program.
“The concern here is that we are too focused on optics and not listening to the clear signs that North Korea is not ready for what we are asking them to do,” Anthony Ruggiero, a conservative sanctions expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner in May.
Proponents of the summit agree that North Korea hasn’t yet decided if it is willing to meet U.S. demands.
“North Korea believes in ‘sufficient’ denuclearization whereas the U.S. talks about complete denuclearization,” said Republican Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee for the Asia-Pacific region. “Those definitions must be agreed upon to move forward for further talks. That’s why it’s imperative to have this first talk.”
