A classified briefing with President Trump’s point man for North Korea negotiations won Democratic support for his strategy and favorable reviews from top lawmakers.
“This was a very good briefing,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said after hearing from Special Envoy Stephen Biegun in a private meeting with the Foreign Relations Committee. “Steve did a great job in giving us some real detail on what happened, which I think is partially why you probably hear some Democrats being more confident about our strategy going forward.”
Biegun, the lead U.S. diplomat for the North Korea denuclearization talks since August, gave the senators with direct responsibility over his work an extensive summary of the events that unfolded during President Trump’s summit with dictator Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, last week. Biegun placed the blame for the absence of a deal in Hanoi on North Korea, while satisfying lawmakers frustrated that the administration has failed to provide regular updates on the negotiations.
“It’s the first in-depth briefing that we’ve had on this or any other subject,” New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the panel, told the Washington Examiner. “It was substantive, it was insightful and very helpful.”
Kim pushed Trump to lift sanctions against the country in exchange for a limited set of concessions pertaining to their nuclear weapons development, prompting Trump to walk away.
The primary reason for the Hanoi standoff, Biegun told lawmakers, is that North Korean officials refused to have a real negotiation in the days leading up to Kim’s second face-to-face meeting with Trump. U.S. negotiators had hoped to hammer out significant details related to denuclearization, after the first summit in Singapore last June produced more pageantry than progress.
“Kim’s play was, ‘I’m not going to have my people talk to your people, because I’ll be able to pull one over on the president when I get him one-on-one,’” Murphy told reporters. “And he wasn’t able to do that.”
Kim’s tactics amount to playing with nuclear fire, a top Republican warned. “Trump will eventually have to conclude whether or not he’s being played,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said as he exited the meeting. “He has made it clear he rejects containment. The goal of this administration is for them to give up their nuclear weapons and, in return, to have security and prosperity guarantees. But, if we get to the point where they’re not willing to do that through diplomacy, then the only other option would be a military conflict.”
Biegun’s briefing coinicided with a new report that North Korean officials are undertaking a “rapid rebuilding” of a space launch facility that could double as an intercontinental ballistic missile test site.
Murphy hopes that “by walking away, the president may have forced serious negotiations” with the North Koreans.
“Nobody would be surprised if this little burst of negotiations goes nowhere,” he told reporters. “But, we don’t have a lot of other plays right now, so I think we’ve all got to get behind this one, no matter our deep reservations about the president’s ineptitude.”
