President Donald Trump will not meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month, he announced in a letter to Kim released by the White House Thursday morning, scrapping plans for what would have been a historic diplomatic summit.
Trump and Kim were scheduled to meet in Singapore on June 12, for what would have been the first face-to-face meeting between a US and North Korean leader.
The decision ends months of diplomatic advances between the US and North Korea that Trump repeatedly heralded as the likely precursor to a historic peace deal and the denuclearisation of North Korea.
In his letter, Trump signaled a return to the bitter nuclear back-and-forth that colored his early interactions with Kim before the diplomatic opening.
“You talk about your nuclear capabilities,” Trump wrote in his letter to Kim, “but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.”
Trump withdrew from the summit after a North Korean vice minister of foreign affairs slammed Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday as a “political dummy,” the latest harshly worded statement from Pyongyang.
Trump and his aides were infuriated by the statement and wanted to respond forcefully, multiple people familiar with the situation told CNN.
The verbal broadside against Pence was just the latest harshly worded statement from North Korea over the last 10 days. Early last week, North Korea canceled a planned meeting with South Korea and threatened to pull out of the Singapore summit because of ongoing US-South Korean military exercises.
Trump and his aides had insisted over the past week that planning for the summit was still ongoing amid the increased bluster from Pyongyang. A logistics team was dispatched to Singapore to finalise details with North Korea officials, and a commemorative coin was stamped by military aides labeling Kim the “Supreme Leader.”
Still, the collapse of the summit was not entirely a surprise, even if Thursday’s announcement was abrupt. North Korea has offered diplomatic openings to the United States several times over the past decades, only to return to bellicose threats. Even after Trump accepted Kim’s invitation to meet in March, most administration officials put the likelihood of the summit actually happening at less than 50% — and administration officials grew increasingly skeptical over the last week.
US officials had also grown increasingly skeptical of Pyongyang’s commitment to denuclearisation. On Wednesday, CNN reported the Trump administration was looking to have additional high-level talks for assurances from Kim for complete denuclearisation before the summit went ahead.
Hours later, a North Korean official lashed out at Pence and said Pyongyang is ready for a nuclear showdown if dialogue with the United States fails.