Trump right to cancel North Korea talks on nuclear weapons

A Tampa Bay Times Editorial

Regardless of the reason, the cancellation of the U.S.-North Korea summit to address Pyonyang's nuclear program is hardly the worst possible outcome of this high-stakes diplomatic gamble. President Donald Trump was unprepared, North Korea's Kim Jong Un was playing games and both leaders seemed oblivious if not indifferent to the real risk of making things worse. Now it's time for both sides to start over and do it right --by building on the dialogue they established to lay a real foundation for talks that could produce substantive results rather than empty boasts and threats from both sides.

Trump abruptly announced Thursday he had canceled the summit, which had been planned for June 12 in Singapore. In a letter to Kim released by the White House, Trump cited "tremendous anger and open hostility" from the North. That is a reference to the North's criticism of Vice President Mike Pence, who reiterated a White House talking point this week in declaring that Kim should sign a deal or be prepared to face the same fate as Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, who gave up his nuclear program at the west's urging only to be ousted and killed by rebels supported by the U.S. and its allies.

Pence's statements were as bewildering as they were toxic, coming after Trump took pains last week to publicly disavow a similar comparison to Libya made by his hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton. North Korea already had bristled at the reference, sparking a confidence crisis in the closing days before the summit. Pence's remarks reflect the conflicting messages this administration has sent and a hardening approach in Trump's inner circle over how far to push Pyongyang.

Still, negotiating with the North always was going to be a prickly process. Trump's decision showed the summit was on softer ground than even his skeptics imagined. South Korea's government said it was blindsided by the move. Trump created further confusion during a televised appearance Thursday when the president said he still held out hope a meeting could be arranged, even though administration officials were saying North Korea had not been cooperating in recent days on essential preliminary planning for the Singapore showdown.

With both Trump and Kim talking tough about nuclear war, this is no way to bring about negotiations over weapons of mass destruction on the Korean peninsula. A White House that minted coins to commemorate the summit and embraced the musing that Trump receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts now finds itself 0-2 on the disarmament front, first by foolishly withdrawing from the nuclear agreement with Iran and now leaving the impasse with North Korea unsettled and on more divisive footing.

Years of plodding diplomacy with the North hasn't produced an agreement, and it was widely hoped Trump's audacious intervention would provide the breakthrough for a deal. Now it's time to repair the damage from these inflated expectations and reckless rhetoric, first by maintaining communication with the North at the staff level and then by uniting America's allies behind a consensus and a strategy for moving a significant agreement forward.

North Korea and its main patron, China, can claim some successes in playing off Trump's vanity and insecurity, and his over-eagerness to make a deal. That enabled Kim to elevate himself on the global stage, which has already crimped America's leverage, weakened the bargaining position of South Korea, frightened Japan and left Europeans in the cold. This is a prime example of what occurs when an unprepared president who is gutting the State Department and thinks he knows more than generals and career diplomats forges foreign policy on the fly like it's one big game show. North Korea has at least opened a dialogue, and Trump has put himself on the hook for cutting a deal. But it's best to walk away now from what could have been a free-wheeling disaster and hit the restart button.