Trump reversal on Pompeo N Korea trip underscores drift

Bloomberg

Donald Trump’s surprise about-face on his top diplomat’s trip to North Korea—just a day after it was announced—reinforced a sense of drift in the administration’s strategy since the president proclaimed a June summit with Kim Jong-un an historic success.
The tweets cancelling a visit to Pyongyang by Secretary of State Michael Pompeo cited a lack of “sufficient progress” in denuclearisation talks, two months after he proclaimed on Twitter that “there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”
The decision “reflects poor coordination on the administration’s North Korea policy,” Bruce Klingner, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and now an Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation, said in a tweet. “The diplomatic road ahead is much longer and bumpier than originally depicted by President Trump.”
In the weeks since the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, the administration has struggled to show any signs of progress in its efforts to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, which surprised intelligence analysts last year with its rapid development. Pompeo conceded before the Senate recently that Kim’s regime continues producing fissile material and has provided no inventory of its nuclear program and facilities.

‘Gangster-Like’
In addition, Pompeo was spending more of his time shoring up support for the tough international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang last year. And on his last two meetings with North Korean officials, including a “polite” exchange with Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho in Singapore this month, Pompeo’s proclamations of progress were undercut by Kim’s aides and state-run media, who have assailed US strategy as “cancerous” and “gangster-like.”
Trump’s decision came after he discussed North Korea at a meeting that included Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, Chief of Staff John Kelly, and the new envoy to North Korean talks, Steve Biegun, said two administration officials familiar with the talks.
The appointment of Biegun, a Ford Motor Co. official who once worked at the National Security Council, came with news that he and Pompeo would travel to Pyongyang to resume talks as early as this weekend.
South Korea Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told Pompeo in a phone call that any delay to his visit was “regrettable,” according to a ministry statement released Saturday in Seoul.

Pompeo North Korea trip delay is ‘regrettable’: S Korea’s Kang
Bloomberg

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a phone call that the delay to his expected visit to North Korea was “regrettable.”
“Secretary of State Pompeo explained in detail the background of delaying this trip to North Korea,” according to a South Korean foreign ministry statement released on Saturday. “Minister Kang said that the international society had many expectations for Secretary of State Pompeo’s visit to North Korea, and that she felt the delay was regrettable.”
South Korea’s statement comes hours after an abrupt reversal of a scheduled trip announced on twitter by President Donald Trump, who cited a lack of “sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” adding the visit will come most likely after America’s “trading relationship with China is resolved.”