Right around the time Air Force 1 returned back in the US from Trump's Singapore summit trip, just before 6am EDT, the president tweeted that "everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea." He added that the "meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!"
He then followed up by taking aim at his predecessor, tweeting that "President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!"
Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!
Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!
Trump's ongoing victory lap was marred, however, overnight when North Korean state media, KCNA, reported that Kim Jong Un said Donald Trump offered to lift sanctions against his regime when they met Tuesday in Singapore, a claim which contradicts Trump's previous statements that the economic strictures would remain.
The KCNA report which was published after Kim returned home from his meeting, noted Trump’s vow to suspend U.S. military drills in South Korea. It also said Trump committed to unspecified “security guarantees” for Pyongyang, and to “lift sanctions against it.”
As Bloomberg notes, the last point was noteworthy since it went further than Trump did in his public comments during and after the meeting. Specifically, while Trump said he would end "war games" with South Korea, the US president said sanctions would stay until the isolated nation moved to give up its nuclear arsenal. But there have been slight differences in recent comments among senior U.S. officials as to whether that means North Korea must first complete denuclearization - and have it verified - or if some goodwill steps would be enough.
Trump himself indicated some wiggle room, saying sanctions relief could come even before the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” -- however that’s ultimately defined by both sides -- is verified. “I hope it’s going to be soon,” he said Tuesday at an hour-long briefing. “At a certain point, I actually look forward to taking them off.”
Adding to the potential confusion, KCNA also portrayed Trump as having given in to Kim...