by John Bolton;
Trump and Kim had a one-on-one at nine a.m., which broke after about forty minutes. They went to an inner courtyard, where they were joined by Pompeo and Kim Yong Chol for what was intended to be a short, perhaps ten-minute, break. Kim Jong Un did not like the heat and humidity, so they went inside a greenhouse-type structure in the inner courtyard used as a café, undoubtedly air-conditioned. The discussion continued, as we watched it through the greenhouse windows. My take was that Kim did not look particularly happy. His sister stood stoically outside in the heat and humidity, while the Americans, needless to say, went inside nearby where it was air-conditioned. After about an hour, this meeting broke, and Trump came into the main structure of the hotel for what was described as a thirty-minute break.
In the holding rooms allocated to us, Trump immediately switched on Fox News to see how the late-night shows were covering Cohen’s testimony, as well as events in Hanoi. Pompeo said the discussion that had just concluded, like the one at dinner, had been all about North Korea’s closing down Yongbyon in exchange for sanctions relief, which wasn’t going anywhere. Kim Jong Un, he said, was “very frustrated” and was “getting angry” that Trump wasn’t giving him what he wanted. There had been no talk of ballistic missiles; the rest of the North’s nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs; or anything other than Yongbyon. Trump was visibly tired and irritated. It was clear he too was frustrated no satisfactory deal was at hand. That told me we were still in perilous territory. It was never over with Trump until he announced it at a press conference, and sometimes not even then. He still seemed comfortable walking away; there was no “big deal” in sight, and he could not sustain a “small deal” politically. I believed Trump’s “head for the barn” instincts were kicking in; he wanted to get it over with and return home (after, of course, the big press conference).
The larger meeting (Trump, Pompeo, Mulvaney, and I on our side of the table; Kim Jong Un, Kim Yong Chol, and Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho on their side; plus interpreters) was scheduled for eleven a.m. We arrived first, then the North Koreans, and we all shook hands. I said to Kim Jong Un, “Mr. Chairman, it’s very nice to see you again,” which I hoped would be true. The press mob came in and out, and Trump asked Kim, “Does the press give you a hard time?” Somewhat stunned, Kim said, “That’s an obvious question. I don’t have that burden,” and laughed. On human rights, Trump said happily we could say we talked about human rights because the press asked Kim a question. Another laugh-fest. Turning serious, Trump asked what Kim had come up with during the break. Kim was unhappy that he had traveled all the way to Hanoi with a proposal he claimed was incomparable to all those put on the table by all of their predecessors, and even so Trump was not satisfied. This went on for some time.
While Kim was talking, Trump asked me for the definition of “denuclearization” we had discussed in the Washington briefings, and also for what we called the “bright future” page, which I gave him. He handed both pages to Kim, and offered to fly him back to North Korea, canceling his evening in Hanoi. Kim laughed and said he couldn’t do that, but Trump observed happily that that would be quite a picture. He asked what North Korea could add to its offer; he knew Kim didn’t want him to look bad because he was the only one on Kim’s side. Kim readily returned the compliment, since he was the only one on Trump’s side. Doubtless without intending the pun, Trump observed that Kim called the shots in North Korea. Kim seemed surprised that Trump saw things that way, but said that even a leader who controlled everything still could not move without providing some justification. Trump said he understood Kim wanted to achieve consensus.
Kim stressed again how significant the Yongbyon6 “concession” was for North Korea and how much coverage the idea was getting in the US media. Trump asked again if Kim could add something to his offer, such as asking only for a percentage reduction in the sanctions rather than completely removing them.7
This was beyond doubt the worst moment of the meeting. If Kim Jong Un had said yes there, they might have had a deal, disastrously for America. Fortunately, he wasn’t biting, saying he was getting nothing, omitting any mention of the sanctions being lifted.
Trump tried changing the subject, asking about prospects for reunifying North and South Korea, and what China thought. Kim, growing tired of diversions, asked to get back to the agenda.
Still trying to improve Kim’s package, Trump suggested he offer to eliminate his long-range missiles, the ones that could hit the United States. I saw this as an obvious dismissal of what I said earlier about the concerns of Japan and South Korea for the short- and medium-range missiles that could hit them. Then came the unexpected from Trump: “John, what do you think?”
I wasn’t going to miss the chance. We needed a full baseline declaration of North Korea’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and ballistic-missile programs (echoing the paper Trump had given Kim Jong Un), I said. This was a traditional step in arms-control negotiations, and prior negotiations had failed without one.
Trump responded that what I had just said was a little complicated, but looked to Kim for his reaction.
Kim wasn’t buying, urging that if we went step by step, that would ultimately bring us a comprehensive picture. He complained, as he had in Singapore, that North Korea had no legal guarantees to safeguard its security, and Trump asked what kind of guarantees the North wanted. There were no diplomatic relations, seventy years of hostility and eight months of personal relations, Kim answered, obviously unwilling to respond with specifics. What would happen if a US warship entered North Korea territorial waters? he asked, and Trump suggested Kim call him.
After more back-and-forth, Trump acknowledged that they had reached an impasse that it was politically impossible for him to resolve in the current meeting.
Kim now looked visibly frustrated, but I was worried. After sustained efforts to explain to Trump how dangerous North Korea’s nuclear threat was, we were reduced to hoping that the politics of avoiding a mass Republican Party revolt was enough to stop a bad deal. Trump turned to Pompeo, asking him to repeat what he had said in the Beast on the way to the Metropole, which Pompeo rendered as, “The takeaway is the progress we have made; we understand each other better; we trust each other more; there was real progress made here. We can hold our heads high.” I was glad I didn’t have to say it.
We turned to closing statements, which Kim wanted to be one joint document. Trump initially preferred separate statements, then decided he didn’t. This went back and forth until Trump said again that he wanted to do a complete deal. Kim said flatly that the most he could do was what he had already proposed, which obviously wasn’t going to happen. He asked instead for a “Hanoi Statement” to show that progress was made, perhaps mentioning that we were thinking about Yongbyon. This was now going in the wrong direction again, but I had been shot down earlier by Trump for saying that a joint statement risked showing we hadn’t achieved anything. “I don’t need risks. I need positives,” Trump responded. Pompeo wanted to talk about progress: “We have made progress in the last eight months, and we will build on that.” Even Kim wouldn’t accept that, saying that we had obviously not reached a good point. Trump interjected emphatically that if we accepted Kim’s proposal, the political impact in the United States would be huge, and he could lose the election. Kim reacted quickly, saying he didn’t want Trump to do anything that would harm him politically. Oh great. Kim kept pushing for a joint statement, but lamented that he felt a barrier between the two leaders, and felt a sense of despair. Kim was smartly playing on Trump’s emotions, and I worried it might work. Trump said Kim shouldn’t feel that way, and then, fortunately, we all laughed. Kim again stressed how important the Yongbyon package was. I said North Korea had already repeatedly promised to denuclearize, starting with the 1992 Joint North-South Declaration, so they already knew to a great extent what was required of them. Trump asked what had happened to the Joint Declaration, and I explained that Clinton had shortly thereafter negotiated the 1994 Agree
d Framework. Trump lamented that it was Kim’s proposal to lift the sanctions that was the deal breaker. Kim agreed that it was a shame, because he had thought the deal would receive a lot of applause.
Instead, inside the room, there was total silence for several seconds, as we all thought the meeting had come to its end. But it hadn’t ended, as Kim kept pushing for some reference to Yongbyon that showed he and Trump had made progress beyond what their predecessors had achieved. I jumped in again, and pitched hard for two separate statements. I said if they were looking for a positive ending, we could each be positive in our own way. Kim said he didn’t want his own statement, which brought several more seconds of silence. Trump said he wanted Kim to be happy. No words for that. Trump made it clear he wanted a joint statement, assigning it to Kim Yong Chol and Pompeo to draft. With that, the North Koreans trundled out, leaving the US delegation alone in the room.
While we were milling around, Trump asked me how we could be “sanctioning the economy of a country that’s seven thousand miles away.” I answered, “Because they are building nuclear weapons and missiles that can kill Americans.”
“That’s a good point,” he agreed. We walked over to where Pompeo was standing, and Trump said, “I just asked John why we were sanctioning seven thousand miles away, and he had a very good answer: because they could blow up the world.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pompeo. Another day at the office. Trump went back to his holding room, and Pompeo told me that this larger meeting had been essentially a replay of the earlier, smaller meeting, with Kim’s relentlessly pushing the Yongbyon deal, hoping Trump would fold.
In the holding room, we found Trump tired, but he expressed the correct insight that “walking away” in Hanoi made clear to the world he could do it elsewhere, such as in the China trade negotiations. Beyond that, however, he had no appetite for anything else, even lunch, which was canceled, along with the joint signing ceremony tentatively on the calendar. Trump said he wanted both Pompeo and me on the stage with him at the press conference, but I explained I had to get to the airport to meet my takeoff slot to avoid a lengthy crew-rest stop in Alaska, which he didn’t seem entirely enthusiastic about. Pompeo said to me a few minutes later, “Lucky you.” I left the Metropole for the airport at about one p.m., learning after takeoff that negotiations with the North on a joint statement had broken down (no surprise). Trump told Sanders just to put out a White House statement. Pompeo and Biegun did their own briefing, trying to make the summit sound like a success so Biegun’s negotiations could continue. In fact, he was following the same failed approach of the three prior Administrations, doomed to produce the same failed outcome.
Flying to Washington, I concluded that Hanoi showed the US still didn’t know how to deal with North Korea and its ilk. We spent endless hours negotiating with ourselves, whittling away at our own position before our adversaries even got to it, a fine art the State Department had perfected. The North Koreans and others were expert at taking full advantage of those who wanted a deal, any deal, as a sign of success. We were a perfect mark. The real irony here was how similar Trump was to the Foreign Service. Another key mistake was constantly briefing the press on how successful the working-level negotiations were, raising media expectations of agreement and exaggerating the effects of getting no deal. Perhaps most important, through the pre-Hanoi briefing process, we had helped Trump conclude that walking away was no failure, thereby derailing the unhealthy negotiation path Biegun was on. But as with every success in government, this was a momentary triumph, and one I knew would not last long. The bureaucracy’s inexorable drive to keep “the process” going would inevitably ignite again, as would Trump’s deathless belief that everyone wanted to talk to him, that everyone was “dying for a deal.”
* * *
After Hanoi, we learned from press sources such as South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo that Kim Yong Chol had endured forced labor, although he was later rehabilitated; that Kim Hyok Chol, Biegun’s counterpart, had been executed, along with several others; that, in penance, Kim Jong Un’s sister had receded from public view for a time; and that Shin Hye Yong, Kim’s interpreter, was in a political prison camp for making an interpretation mistake. That at least was better than the previous report that she had been executed for failing to stop Trump from interrupting her translation of Kim Jong Un’s glowing words.8 It was hard to verify any of this, but everyone knew the North Korean leader was fully capable of ordering such punishments. A Washington Post reporter, in yet another exercise of its responsible journalism, tweeted: “Looks like [Trump]’s erratic diplomacy, including adopting maximalist Bolton positions in Hanoi, got some people killed.”9
Reactions to the Hanoi Summit almost uniformly reflected surprise if not stunned disbelief. Condi Rice and Steve Hadley both called and expressed support for Trump’s walkout, and Rice told me she had recounted to Pence one of my favorite Bush 43 anecdotes. Bush had likened Kim Jong Il to a child in a high chair, constantly pushing his food onto the floor, with the US and others always picking it up and placing it back on the tray. Things hadn’t changed much. The Communists wouldn’t learn until the food just stayed on the floor, if then. I spoke a few days later with South Korea’s Chung Eui-yong, who had an interesting take. He said they were surprised Kim Jong Un had come to Hanoi with only one strategy and no Plan B. Chung also reflected Moon Jae-in’s schizophrenic idea that while we were right to reject North Korea’s “action for action” formula, Kim’s willingness to dismantle Yongbyon (never defined clearly) was a very meaningful first step, showing that the North had entered an irreversible stage of denuclearization. This last contention was nonsense, as was Moon’s endorsement of China’s “parallel and simultaneous approach,” which sounded a lot like “action for action” to me. Chung was the first to predict, based on coverage of the summit in the North’s Rodong Sinmun (available to “ordinary people,” as Chung described it), that “some officials [would] be replaced,” which turned out to be an understatement. Making a mistake in North Korean foreign policy could be fatal not only to your career but to yourself.
The surprise many people felt, especially US commentators, stemmed from the State Department’s relentless pre-Hanoi efforts to foreshadow that we would indeed accept some version of “action for action.” Speeches, quiet interviews with reporters and pundits, and seminars at think tanks all heralded we were about to reach those “broad sunlit uplands” where one concession after another would flow from Washington. This was what State Department negotiators for years had understood to be “the art of the deal.” The people who really had no Plan B after Hanoi were America’s High-Minded, who wanted nothing more than to return to the Clinton Administration’s Agreed Framework, or the Bush Administration’s Six-Party Talks, or the Obama Administration’s “strategic patience” strategy. It turned out, on the road to Panmunjom, they were more patient than I gave them credit for.
As time passed, however, the North was moving from being surprised to being outraged. On March 15, our favorite North Korean Vice Foreign Minister, Choe Son Hui, blasted Pompeo and me for creating “an atmosphere of hostility and mistrust” in Hanoi through our “uncompromising demands.”10 I should have issued a statement thanking her. By contrast, she said the Trump-Kim relationship “is still good, and the chemistry mysteriously wonderful.” Indeed. Then came the threat. Choe said Kim Jong Un would decide shortly whether to resume nuclear and ballistic-missile testing, which induced enormous concern in South Korea’s government. I spoke to Chung the same day, and he said Choe’s statement had taken them by surprise. Nonetheless, they hoped her remarks were just reiterating what she had said in Hanoi in a late-night press conference after Trump had walked away. We watched Moon continue to press harder for another Moon-Kim summit, focused only on nuclear issues, perhaps because he saw his own inter-Korean policy being impacted.
I sensed Trump beginning to worry he had been too tough in Hanoi, which manifested itself in several ways. He began saying again, “We shouldn�
��t spend ten cents on war games,” referring to our exercises with South Korea. On the other hand, he never relented in supporting the economic “maximum pressure” campaign against North Korea. I held a Principals Committee on March 21 to assess whether the campaign was as “maximum” as it could be and to consider how to stiffen it up. The major issue for discussion was whether the United States should do more to inhibit ship-to-ship transfers at sea, coal being exported from North Korea and oil being imported. Through the ship-to-ship transfers, the North obviously hoped to escape surveillance, and I wanted to see if there were steps short of using force that would make it harder for these exchanges to take place. There was no discussion of additional sanctions against North Korea, only how to better enforce those already in place.
The next day, a Friday, we were in Mar-a-Lago for Trump’s meeting with the leaders of five Caribbean island states (the Bahamas, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Saint Lucia), another encounter I several times urged him to do despite his objections, but which he later touted as his own idea. Trump pulled me and a few others into the “library” (really a bar) off the lobby lounge and said he wanted recent Treasury enforcement actions against two Chinese companies for violating North Korea sanctions rolled back. We had approved these decisions—all of which had been signed off on personally by Pompeo, Mnuchin, and me—which were enforcement measures under existing sanctions, not “new” sanctions broadening or enlarging what was already there. After Singapore, we had expressly reviewed this distinction with Trump. He agreed strict enforcement of existing sanctions would continue, and pursuant to that understanding, we had, in over nine months since Singapore, penalized a significant number of companies and individuals for violations.
