U.S. President Donald Trump is in Hanoi for his second summit with Kim Jong Un amid hopes for a deal that would lead the North Korean leader to give up his nuclear weapons.
Trump received a red carpet welcome at Noi Bai International airport where white uniformed military guards marched into place on a cool and somewhat foggy night.
Trump stopped for brief conversation with the dignitaries, who included Vietnam’s ambassador to the U.S., Hà Kim Ng?c; Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ph?m Bình Minh and the U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, Daniel Kritenbrink.
Thousands of Vietnamese lined the sidewalks as Trump’s motorcade entered the city, some waving small American, North Korean and Vietnamese flags.
Shortly after he arrived at the luxury hotel in Hanoi where he will spend two nights, Trump tweeted: “Just arrived in Vietnam. Thank you to all the people for the great reception in Hanoi. Tremendous crowds and so much love!
Just arrived in Vietnam. Thank you to all of the people for the great reception in Hanoi. Tremendous crowds, and so much love!
National Security Advisor John Bolton, two months ago, said a second summit was needed because North Korea had yet to live up to the commitments it made last June in Singapore.
A lack of a major breakthrough for the second time could have negative political ramifications for Trump.
“If the president makes substantive concessions, I think he will get serious bipartisan criticism,” says James Jay Carafano, the vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s institute for national security and foreign policy.
That would “probably be the last thing he needs” amid the possible release this week of a summary of the special counsel’s report into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 election campaign, adds Carafano.
“If the report is good news, a distraction is bad,” he tells VOA. “If it’s bad news, it will compound his problems.”
Some analysts, however, predict there would be scant political damage for Trump as he can just declare a foreign policy victory.
“All it takes is Kim pretending to disarm and Trump pretending to believe him,” says Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“So long as Kim doesn’t embarrass Trump publicly by testing a nuclear weapon or a ballistic missile, domestically Trump can keep rinsing and repeating,” Narang, author of the book Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era tells VOA. “The advantage for Trump is that Kim’s continued expansion of his nuclear weapons program is largely silent, and, at best, shows up on page 10” of local newspapers in the United States.
“If nothing positive happens, the Democratic Party hawks and the media may mock Trump's pretensions and claims to be a master negotiator,” says Professor Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University. “But as long as tensions don't re-erupt on the Korean peninsula, most Americans will be satisfied with the status quo and move on to other issues.”
If Trump can keep the North Korean leader engaged, diplomatic efforts continue with sanctions still in place and Pyongyang maintains its moratorium on nuclear and missile testing, “Trump can pocket a foreign policy win going into the election,” according to Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Rebeccah Heinrichs.
With a status quo for at least another year, the president “can tell his supporters to stick with him so he can ‘finish the job’ in another four years,” Heinrichs tells VOA.
There is anxiety Trump might trade away the presence of U.S. troops in the Far East for concessions by Kim on nuclear weapons or intercontinental ballistic missiles. Such a move, besides alarming allies, could also open Trump to severe political criticism back home from both the left and the right.
“There is concern “Trump will ad-lib concessions to Kim Jong Un without his team knowing about it before hand,” says Duyeon Kim, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “Concrete denuclearization steps don't mean getting rid of things they don't need anymore. It means touching parts of their program that matter, even if they are baby steps at first.” She adds that a “front-loading on U.S. concessions without getting anything proportionate in return, as Trump did in Singapore, risks losing negotiating leverage very quickly and allowing Pyongyang to dictate this entire process. “
One unresolved issue is a mutually-agreed definition of denuclearization.
Trump administration officials have insisted there must be “complete, verifiable and irreversible” removal of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, including its delivery systems.