The Collapse of the Second DPRK-U.S. Summit: How the U.S. Perceives It

No. 2019-7 (March 1, 2019)

Dr. Woo Jung-Yeop

Director, Center for American Studies, the Sejong Institute

woo@sejong.org

How the summit ended left the U.S. observers flabbergasted. They never expected the negotiations to fall flat. Previously, most of the misgivings about the summit were the conclusion in which President Trump accepts a low-level measure of denuclearization in exchange for the removal of large portions of sanctions to flaunt his achievements; thus, North Korea being de facto acknowledged as a nuclear-weapons state. With these misgivings prevalent among experts and media, the collapse of the summit came as a surprise. Even those who viewed Trump disapprovingly based on the logic of ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’ breathed a sigh of relief. They had qualms about the circumstances that the ‘bad deal’ was the only outcome possible from the interplay of their fundamental distrust of North Korea – that North Korea is not genuinely committed to the agreement on denuclearization –, the situation that nothing has been achieved since the first summit, and the political aversion to President Trump.

Such perception from the U.S. hugely contrasted with South Korea’s expectations. Prior to the negotiations, South Koreans had high expectations of a positive outcome - that is, the two sides exchange the ‘Yongbyon’ factor and sanctions relief, advancing North Korea’s denuclearization and aiding the inter-Korean relations through sanctions relief. One of the underlying assumptions was that since the U.S. finds the resolution more urgently than North Korea, it will accept North Korea’s proposal – that North Korea gives up Yongbyon for the partial sanctions relief (not to the extent that North Korea desires) to achieve a further-step summit outcome. Particularly, the state of affairs that President Trump will be encountering in domestic politics – the announcement of near-complete Mueller report is scheduled next week and the public hearing of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s ex-lawyer, who is predicted to testify against President Trump, is to be held in the middle of the summit - beefed up the expectations. Owing to the fact that President Trump is under fire domestically, the logic behind this expectation was that President Trump will be likely to seek a breakthrough using North Korea and sign a better agreement than the Singapore summit to boast about his feat.

Nonetheless, the U.S. political situation took the opposite course. Even with the agreement at the first summit, President Trump blew his own horn by indicating that North Korea does not conduct nuclear and missile tests and the remains of U.S. soldiers are returned. As a matter of fact, U.S. domestic politics do not require President Trump to achieve anything beyond that. Provided that President Trump successfully persuade Chairman Kim to agree on the genuine abolition of the nuclear stockpile, the U.S. and the international community inspects and verifies the measures, and the North Korean missiles are disassembled, it will have a significant impact on American politics. However, summits concluded with agreements in written form cannot swing the U.S. politics. Rather, it opens up for criticisms of and oppositions to a ‘bad deal’ from those groups that have a malevolent attitude toward President Trump – the expert group in the security circle in Washington and the Democrats which have the majority in the House. Moreover, noting the situation that President Trump receives lambasting remarks for continuing negotiations with Kim Jong-un without mentioning North Korea’s human rights issue, President Trump and his aides may have concluded that no deal is better than a bad deal.

Furthermore, President Trump attributed the summit collapse to the point that “[b]asically, they [North Koreans] wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety.” At the post-summit press conference. In response, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho clarified at the news conference, “What we proposed was not the removal of all sanctions, but the partial removal. In detail, there are 11 UN sanctions resolutions imposed upon the DPRK and we proposed to the United States to lift the article of sanctions that impede the civilian economy and the livelihood of our people from five UN sanctions resolutions adopted in 2016 and 2017.” The two remarks are both true. The North Korean authorities picked out a part of the international sanctions regime against North Korea; thus, Minister Ri did not make a false statement. Still, President Trump’s word also is true, given the fact that among the 11 UN sanctions against North Korea ranging from resolution 1695 in March 2006 to resolution 2397 in December 2017 the resolutions from the resolution 2270 in March 2016 onwards directly influence the North Korean economy – thus what Pyongyang desires to be relieved. From the U.S. standpoint, the resolutions since 2016 are the essence of the sanctions regime against North Korea that brought about changes of the North Korean regime’s behavior. Upon commencing the denuclearization talks between Iran and the international community, many experts delved into the comparative study of sanctions against Iran and North Korea. The palpable difference between the two sanctions regime was whether the sanctions cover the overall economy. As the international community viewed the sanctions on the Iranian economy as a whole as the key factor, the U.S. also observed the sanctions against North Korea since 2016 lie at the crux of the sanctions regime.

Especially, Special Representative Stephen Biegun explained that the U.S. and North Korea are yet to agree on a common definition of denuclearization in the working-level negotiations with North Korea which began after an eight-month adjournment. It indicates that the U.S. view on North Korea’s complete abolition of the nuclear arsenal is dissimilar with North Korea’s perception of denuclearization. As Mr. Biegun realized the difference in perceptions, Washington could have been determinedly wary of the risk of easing sanctions in the middle of the denuclearization process without the clear congruity in the ultimate goal. It is necessary to have an agreement on how and when to achieve the final goal so as to agree on the process to accomplish such a goal. In response, the U.S. could also partially remove sanctions in a phased manner. However, without the firm agreement on the final goal, lifting sanctions in the middle diminishes the possibility of reaching the finish line. That is why the U.S. cannot accept the deal at present stage.

Ultimately, the U.S. should leave the largest portion of sanctions until the point when North Korea eradicates completely its existing nuclear arsenal including nuclear materials to coerce North Korea to reach the endpoint. North Korea wants to exchange decommissioning of Yongbyon nuclear facilities and others with a huge chunk of the sanctions at the initial stages. Consequently and logically, the two countries have difficulties to find a middle ground.

※ Translator’s note: This is a summarized unofficial translation of the original article that was written in Korean. All references should be made to the original paper.

※ The views expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily represent those of the Sejong Institute.