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Donald Trump on Sunday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit North Korea, stepping across the border during a meeting at the demilitarized zone with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. At the impromptu summit, Trump said they agreed to resume working level negotiations, which had been stalled, as VOA’s William Gallo reports from Seoul.
From: MeNeedIt
Donald Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to visit North Korea, stepping across the border during a meeting at the demilitarized zone with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
After shaking hands with Kim at the Panmunjom border village, Trump walked across the military demarcation line separating the two Koreas. Kim and Trump then crossed the border back into South Korea.
“Good to see you again,” Kim told Trump. “I never expected to see you in this place.”
“Stepping across that line was a great honor,” said Trump, who invited Kim to the United States for another meeting.
Trump on Saturday had said the meeting would only last two minutes. However, Trump’s private talks with Kim lasted about 50 minutes, turning into an impromptu summit.
When Trump emerged from the meeting, he announced he and Kim had agreed to form teams to restart working level talks.
“They will meet over the next few weeks and they’re going to start a process and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “Speed is not the object…we want a really comprehensive, good deal.”
Leaving South Korea after a wonderful meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Un. Stood on the soil of North Korea, an important statement for all, and a great honor!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2019
It is the third meeting between Kim and Trump, following meetings in Singapore last June and in Vietnam in February. Though the DMZ summit raises hopes of revived nuclear talks, it’s not clear how much progress was made.
Nuclear progress?
Trump announced his negotiating team would continue to be led by Steve Biegun, the U.S. special envoy for North Korea. He said that North Korea “was also putting someone in charge who we know and who we like,” though he didn’t elaborate.
After the Singapore summit, Trump also announced his deputies would soon start working level negotiations. But those talks soon broke down over disagreements about how to pace sanctions relief with North Korea’s steps to dismantle its nuclear weapons.
“It’s where we were about 15 months ago,” says Vipin Narang, a nuclear expert and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “One step forward, two steps back. But this is one step forward.”
“Given where we were last week, it’s not nothing,” he added.
The disagreements between the U.S. and North Korea remain vast. Not only has North Korea not provided a list of its nuclear sites, Washington and Pyongyang have not even agreed on what the idea of denuclearization means.
In recent weeks, North Korea expressed increasing levels of anger at the U.S. refusal to relax sanctions. Trump prefers a “big deal” under which North Korea commits to completely abandoning his nuclear weapons before relaxing any sanctions.
In their public comments Sunday, neither Trump nor Kim gave any indication of softening their stances.
“There was no sign that the two sides were prepared to address the underlying substantive problems, like differences over sanctions relief, that have made diplomacy so difficult,” says Mintaro Oba, a former State Department official and Korea specialist.
“Unless the working-level negotiators have a mandate to try new, more constructive approaches to these problems, it’s hard to see what they can achieve,” he adds.
U.S. officials have given mixed signals about whether they are open to an incremental approach, whereby Pyongyang would give up its nuclear program in stages in exchange for reciprocal steps by Washington.
Building trust or theatrics?
Trump visited the DMZ with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Though the three leaders did not make any public statement together, they briefly appeared together before Trump and Kim met for private talks.
At an earlier military briefing with Moon at a DMZ lookout point, Trump said the demilitarized zone used to be “very, very dangerous…but after our first summit, all the danger went away.”
Trump also defended his North Korea policy and blasted media that have questioned whether he should meet with Kim, given that talks with North Korea are stalled.
“I say that for the press, they have no appreciation for what we’ve done,” Trump said.
While many warn the latest summit risked normalizing friendly relations with a brutal dictator, South Korea’s President Moon said the meeting was an important step toward building trust with North Korea.
“We have taken one big step forward,” Moon said. “The…Korean people have been given hope thanks to today.”
But Bonnie Glaser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that for Trump, stepping inside North Korea might not signify any change in policy.
Trump, she said, delights in doing things no president has done before.”
From: MeNeedIt
The Senate’s top Democrat called on the U.S. government Sunday to step up its efforts to investigate the deaths of Americans who traveled to the Dominican Republic and is asking the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to get involved.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the agency should step in to lend investigative support to the FBI and local law enforcement officials after at least eight Americans died in the Dominican Republic this year. Family members of the tourists have called on authorities to investigate whether there’s any connection between the deaths and have raised the possibility the deaths may have been caused by adulterated alcohol or misused pesticides.
The ATF – the agency primarily investigates firearms-related crimes but is also charged with regulating alcohol and tobacco – is uniquely positioned to provide technical and forensic expertise in the investigation, Schumer said. The agency also has offices in the Caribbean.
“Given that we still have a whole lot of questions and very few answers into just what, if anything, is cause for the recent spate of sicknesses and several deaths of Americans in the Dominican Republic, the feds should double their efforts on helping get to the bottom of things,” Schumer said in a statement to The Associated Press.
An ATF spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Francisco Javier Garcia, the tourism minister in the Dominican Republic, said earlier this month that the deaths are not part of any mysterious wave of fatalities but instead are a statistically normal phenomenon that has been lumped together by the U.S. media. He said autopsies show the tourists died of natural causes.
Five of the autopsies were complete as of last week, while three were undergoing further toxicological analysis with the help from the FBI because of the circumstances of the deaths.
From: MeNeedIt
Israel’s prime minister says the Palestinians are “determined to continue the conflict at any price.”
Speaking at his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu was referring to the Palestinian leadership’s rejection of last week’s Mideast peace conference in Bahrain aimed at providing economic assistance.
Netanyahu says while Israel welcomed the U.S.’s $50 billion Palestinian development plan, the Palestinians themselves denounced it and even arrested a Palestinian businessman who participated in it.
Netanyahu says, “This is not how those who want to promote peace act.”
Palestinian forces have since released businessman Saleh Abu Mayala.
The Palestinian Authority accuses the Trump administration of being biased toward Israel and has boycotted it since it recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017. They accuse the U.S. of trying to replace Palestinian statehood with money.
From: MeNeedIt
Rest assured, British fans: Most baseball games are not like the one played Saturday in London, not even the crazy ones between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
Each team scored six runs in a first inning that lasted nearly an hour, with Aaron Hicks hitting the first European homer. Brett Gardner had a tiebreaking, two-run drive in the third, Aaron Judge went deep to cap a six-run fourth and the Yankees outlasted their rivals 17-13 in a game that stretched for 4 hours, 42 minutes — 3 minutes shy of the record for a nine-inning game.
“Well, cricket takes like all weekend to play, right? So, I’m sure a lot of people are used to it,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We should remind them there’s not 30 runs every game.”
The game was played before a sellout crowd of 59,659 that included supporters from Britain, Beantown and the Big Apple plus royalty, and America’s national pastime seemed to make a positive impression on British fans.
“I think we’re getting as good a reception as football has for the last couple years,” Yankees first baseman Luke Voit said.
Great weather
The weather helped. It was a warm, picture-perfect day in often overcast London — baseball weather at its best, played on a midsummer’s eve with sunlight that seemed to never fade.
Things American fans take for granted, like standing for the national anthem, or joshing rival fans without getting overly crude, struck many Brits in London Stadium as a refreshing change.
“It’s brilliant, it’s amazing, it’s so American as well,” said Jack Lockwood, a 23-year-old who pitches and plays catcher in an amateur baseball league in the city of Sheffield. “I’ve been to hundreds of football (soccer) games and it’s just such a different atmosphere. I just like the American positivity.”
Lockwood spent about six hours on a train to get to and from London for the game, but he considered the trip well worth it, even though his favorite team — the Los Angeles Dodgers — wasn’t playing.
He said it would be impossible to have fans from two rival English soccer teams sit in the same stands — intermingled as Yankee and Red Sox fans were Saturday — without violent scenes.
“You put two rival football teams’ fans in the same stands, you’ll get a fight,” he said. “In baseball, you can put the fans together and you can have a laugh with anyone.”
British touches
There were some British touches at the game, like the roaming vendors selling Pimm’s cocktails and gin and tonics, but the focus was generally on typical American ballpark fare: hot dogs, nachos, burgers and beer. There were even supersized hot dogs, checking in at 2 feet long.
“It’s the way the Americans do sports,” said pleased British fan Stuart Graham, 45. “The way they have the spectator in mind. You know, you’re sitting there and the man comes around with your beer and your hot dogs, and you can relax and enjoy the game. It’s really very different to what we’re used to.”
He and Ian Muggridge bought the tickets months ago, spurred in part by the storied Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, which promised to bring top talent to the British capital.
“Two big heavyweights of U.S. baseball, sort of like Manchester United playing Liverpool in the UK,” he said, referring to British soccer rivals. “Great spectacle to come and see.”
He did find one disappointment to baseball in Britain: The hot dogs weren’t as good as the ones he’d enjoyed at an American park.
Muggridge appreciated the mood in the park, with the playing of the U.S. and British national anthems before the game.
‘Patriotic feel’
“I like the fact that it’s got quite a patriotic feel about it,” he said. “You don’t often get that in British sports. We tend to avoid that, whereas in America you just put it out there.”
While many British fans only had to jump a Tube train to get to the park, thousands of American fans flew across the Atlantic at considerable expense to catch the historic games.
Yankees fan Danielle McCauley of Clifton, N.J., built a weeklong British holiday around Saturday’s game.
“It’s been fun. The whole thing has been really cool,” she said, although she found the crowd far less raucous than those she had been part of in Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. Call it British reserve.
“It’s quiet,” she said. “It’s the quietest sporting event I’ve ever been to.”
From: MeNeedIt
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday appealed a U.S. judge’s ruling that blocked his administration from using $2.5 billion in funds intended for anti-drug activities to construct a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
U.S. Department of Justice lawyers said in a court filing that they were formally appealing Friday’s ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We’re immediately appealing it, and we think we’ll win the appeal,” Trump said during a press conference Saturday at a summit of leaders of the Group of 20 major economies in Japan.
“There was no reason that that should’ve happened,” Trump said.
Trump says construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico
border is needed to keep out illegal immigrants and drugs, but he has so far been unable to get congressional approval for such a project.
A federal judge blocked on Friday President Donald Trump from building sections of his long-sought border wall with money secured under his declaration of a national emergency.
U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam, Jr., immediately halted the administration’s efforts to redirect military-designated funds for wall construction. His order applies to two high-priority projects to replace 51 miles (82 kilometers) of fence in two areas on the Mexican border.
Gilliam issued the ruling after hearing arguments last week in two cases.
In February, the Trump administration declared a national
emergency to reprogram $6.7 billion in funds that Congress had allocated for other purposes to build the wall, which groups and states including California had challenged.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in Oakland, Calif., said in a pair of court decisions that the Trump administration’s proposal to transfer Defense Department funds intended for anti-drug activities was unlawful.
One of Gilliam’s rulings was in a lawsuit filed by California on behalf of 20 states, while the other was in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in coordination with the Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition.
“These rulings critically stop President Trump’s illegal
money grab to divert $2.5 billion of unauthorized funding for
his pet project,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra
said in a statement late Friday. “All President Trump has
succeeded in building is a constitutional crisis, threatening
immediate harm to our state.”
From: MeNeedIt
A leader in the fight for health benefits for emergency personnel who responded to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. has died.
Former New York City Police detective Luis Alvarez died from colorectal cancer Saturday, his family announced in a post On Facebook.
The 53-year-old Alvarez appeared with American comedian and political activist Jon Stewart before a House Judiciary subcommittee on June 11 to appeal for an extension of the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund.
A frail Alvarez told the panel, “This fund is not a ticket to paradise, it’s to provide our families with care.” He went on to say “You all said you would never forget. Well, I’m here to make sure that you don’t.”
Alvarez was diagnosed with cancer in 2016. His illness was traced to the three months he spent searching for survivors in the toxic rubble of the World Trade Center’s twin towers that were destroyed in the terrorist attacks.
He was admitted to a hospice on Long Island, New York within a few days of his testimony in Washington.
Legislation to replenish the $7.3 billion compensation fund that provides health benefits to police officers, firefighters and other emergency responders passed the full committee unanimously.
The federal government opened the fund in 2011 to compensate responders and their families for deaths and illnesses that were linked to exposure to toxins. Current projections indicate the fund will be depleted at the end of 2020.
Other responders who spent weeks at the site have also been diagnosed with A variety of cancers and other illnesses.
The World Trade Center Health Program, a separate program associated with a fund run by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said more than 12,000 related cases of cancer had also been diagnosed as of May.
From: MeNeedIt
Since Portugal’s colony of Macau reverted to Chinese control in 1999, it has become known for operating the world’s most profitable gaming industry and a go-along, get-along attitude toward Beijing.
However, the continuing protests in Hong Kong over a controversial extradition bill may be triggering some small change of political attitudes in Macau, 65 kilometers (40.4 miles) away by ferry. Hong Kong businesses closed to support protests, so did some Macau shops, for example.
Jose Pereira Coutinho, president of the pro-democracy New Hope party in Macau, and one of the most influential members of its legislative assembly, told VOA that despite the different legal systems in Macau and Hong Kong, the two Special Administrative Regions of China “are highly similar in the ways of life and their societies in general. We always reflect on what happens in Hong Kong. The recent protests there … are a lesson for the Macau government to not step into a wrong decision, so that the mistakes would not happen … in Macau.”
His is not the only voice hinting at change.
‘One citizen, one photo’ protest
Macau Concealers, a pro-democracy newspaper, organized a “one citizen, one photo” event that asked people to submit photos of themselves holding protest signs.
Jia Lu, a Macanese journalist, said in his commentary on the Hong Kong protest: “Liberty is never free bread to be taken for granted. Today, as long as you are a human, there is no reason to be silent.”
Some Macau activists traveled across the Pearl River estuary to join the Hong Kong protests.
Macanese reporter Jiajun Chen posted on Facebook during the first week of protests that he was injured by the hot chili spray the Hong Kong police used to control protesters as he covered the crowds. Then, while receiving first aid at the scene, he received another stinging dose from the Hong Kong police. Chen said his press pass was visible during both sprays.
“We are just so used to complaining, often in private, but rarely take action,” Di Ng, 27, a Macanese independent filmmaker, told VOA in a phone interview.
“Macau is a very traditional society largely controlled by different she tuan,” he said. She tuan are foundations and associations organized according to industries, interests, family ties and social identities.
“The elderly get to organize the social order, and they are usually pro-[Beijing]. Even youngsters who want to speak out are discouraged by this social structure.”
“Only after coming to Taiwan did I realize that the definition of a modern society should include democracy, not just fancy mega-casinos and free cash from the government,” said Ng, who is now doing graduate work in film at Taipei’s National Taiwan University of Arts.
Macau vs Hong Kong
Meng U Ieong, an assistant professor from the department of government and public administration in University of Macau, cautioned that the values of modern Western democracies are less popular in Macau than they are in Hong Kong, even though Macau was a Portuguese colony for 442 years, or 286 longer years than Hong Kong was under British rule.
“The social mobilization mechanism is very different between Hong Kong and Macau,” he told VOA in an email.
He pointed to the large-scale protest in Macau in 2014 that halted a controversial pension plan for retired officials as the kind of event used as evidence that Macanese will take to the streets only for pocketbook issues.
Abstract “social issues which do not relate to very specific and tangible interests,” such as the extradition bill upsetting Hong Kong, are unlikely to generate protests in Macau, according to Ieong.
Since 2008, Macau’s government has given an annual cash handout to residents. For 2018, all local permanent residents received a cash handout of 10,000 patacas, or about $1,245. Nonpermanent residents received 6,000 patacas.
This largesse is because of Macau’s gaming industry. Its revenues overtook those from the Las Vegas Strip in 2007, according to Reuters.
In 2018, the “Vegas of China” tallied $38 billion, according to the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, the haul was $6.6 billion in 2018, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
For both Hong Kong, a British colony until 1997, and Macau, the changeover from European colony to Chinese territory came with the concept of “one country, two systems.” Communist Party reformer Deng Xiaoping designed the concept as a way to gather Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan into China, while preserving their political and economic systems.
Taiwan remains independent. Hong Kong has met Beijing’s tightening controls with protests, including the most recent, and largest, ones over a proposed law that would allow extradition for trial in China. The law is backed by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who is closely aligned with Beijing and who has apologized for the current controversy.
In 2014, Beijing’s interference with the selection of candidates for the chief executive position spawned the Occupy Central or Umbrella Movement. It focused on demands for universal suffrage, which is a long-term goal of Hong Kong’s Basic Law.
Success story
Macau, however, emerged as the “one country, two systems” success story. Unlike Hong Kong, with its global reputation as a business center bound by the rule of law, Macau largely depends on gaming and has shown little resistance to Beijing’s influence, according to a recent Foreign Policy article.
“There is stronger Chinese influence [in Macau]. Plus, we usually just see things in economic terms, unlike Hong Kongers who uphold the value of democracy that they inherited from the British,” said a 17-year-old Macanese student. A freshman at a Los Angeles area college, she asked to remain anonymous because she was in Hong Kong attending orientation for non-U.S. students when the protests erupted.
Eilo Yu, an associate professor in the department of government and public administration at University of Macau, expects the Hong Kong protests to influence Macau’s August vote for its chief executive.
“If Mr. Ho Iat Seng, whom I believe will be the only candidate, cannot manage well in responding [to the protest], this will hurt his legitimacy in ruling when he becomes the CE,” Yu said to VOA in an email. “The current situation may be good to his campaign [in] that he need not make a firm statement for a possible extradition between Mainland and Macao. However, if Carrie Lam is going to resign during the Macau election, Ho will be questioned and pressured on his possible resignation when his performance” disappoints Macao citizens.
“We were known for being silent,” said Ng, the filmmaker. “But with the Hong Kongers setting the example, things might be different in the future.”
From: MeNeedIt
For months, the names of white men have sat at the top of early Democratic presidential primary polls. On the debate stage this week, the half-dozen women in the field offered up an alternative: themselves.
They did so with different tactics and styles but a shared goal: shaking up assumptions about who is electable in a race for a job that has only been held by men.
While it’s too early in the Democratic nominating process to know if they succeeded on that front, some of the women emerged as dominant forces on the debate stage, driving the policy discussions and insisting on being heard on issues despite the crowded field. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and California Sen. Kamala Harris led the way and were widely seen as among the top performers.
“Over the past two nights, women won each debate and showed that this race is not over,” said Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List, the largest national organization devoted to electing women. “They were great debaters, compelling storytellers and effective at making their case and getting in the fight when they had a point to make.”
Of course, winning one debate is far different than winning the nomination or the general election. Hillary Clinton, for example, dominated most of her debate showdowns throughout the 2016 campaign, including her three faceoffs with Donald Trump, but still lost the election.
For some Democrats, Clinton’s loss was a searing experience that has prompted questions about whether the country is ready to elect a female president — or whether the party should even risk testing that proposition in next year’s high-stakes election.
In her two White House campaigns, Clinton was always the only woman on the debate stage. This time around, the female candidates had company — a history-making three women on stage each night. On Wednesday, Warren was joined by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. On Thursday, Harris debated alongside Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and the author Marianne Williamson. The debate’s moderators also included two women, NBC News’ Rachel Maddow and Savannah Guthrie.
Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said she is among those who have heard voters raise doubts about whether Democrats should nominate a woman in 2020 following Clinton’s loss. Following the debates, she said she was hopeful that narrative might change.
“This question of electability maybe gets shaken up a little bit as a result of these past two nights,” Walsh said.
There were notable moments for many of the women on stage. Gillibrand focused her message on women’s rights and family issues, doubling down on her strategy of running as an unabashed feminist. Klobuchar’s standout moment came when a male rival portrayed himself as the field’s most ardent defender of abortion rights.
“I want to say there are three women up here who fought pretty hard for a woman’s right to choose,” Klobuchar said as the audience erupted in applause.
Yet it was Warren and Harris who rose to the top of the pack.
Warren stood at center stage on Wednesday, reflecting her standing as the night’s highest polling candidate. Her liberal policy positions also took center stage, driving much of the discussion throughout the night. Warren consciously avoided squabbling with her rivals, seeking to project the strength of a leading candidate.
Harris burst through on night two with a striking exchange with former Vice President Joe Biden, who has led early polling throughout the year. She challenged Biden vigorously, and in personal terms, over his past positions on school busing and his comments citing his work with segregationist senators as an example of a bygone air of civility.
The exchange was not the result of a moderator’s question. It was a moment Harris seized on herself, breaking in after author Williamson described how the average American was “woefully undereducated” about the history of race in the United States.
“As the only black person on this stage, I’d like to speak on the issue of race,” Harris said. The crowd fell silent as she then recounted being bused to a desegregated school as a child.
“By weaving her personal experience into the broader attack, she could go after Biden without coming off as petty or inappropriate,” said Amanda Litman, a co-founder of Run For Something who worked on Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “She claimed her space and made incredible use of it.”
The strong overall female presence in these debates may have a resonance well beyond what was visible onstage, said Erin Cassese, a specialist in women and politics at the University of Delaware.
Research shows, Cassese said, that “when women run, there’s a role model effect, other women pay attention, they’re more engaged in the campaign, and they may develop political ambitions.”
She added: “It’s less obvious because it’s not what we’re seeing onstage, but it’s about how people are connecting to the optics of it.”
From: MeNeedIt
Mexico and the United States are scrambling to address rising numbers of immigrants arriving at their shared border. Mexican border guards are stepping up raids against immigrants traveling north. In the United States, an uproar over the treatment of children in U.S. detention facilities led American lawmakers to approve a $4.6 billion emergency bill. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
From: MeNeedIt
U.S. President Donald Trump says he is willing to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, “just to shake his hand and say hello.”
Trump made the offer in a tweet just hours ahead of landing in South Korea on Saturday.
After some very important meetings, including my meeting with President Xi of China, I will be leaving Japan for South Korea (with President Moon). While there, if Chairman Kim of North Korea sees this, I would meet him at the Border/DMZ just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2019
Speaking to reporters at the Group of 20 summit in Japan, Trump said he decided Saturday morning to “put out a feeler” to meet Kim, adding that such a meeting would only last for two minutes.
Kim has not responded to Trump’s offer. In a statement to reporters, South Korea’s presidential Blue House says “nothing has been finalized yet,” adding that Seoul continues to call for more dialogue with North Korea.
It isn’t clear whether South Korean President Moon Jae-in would also attend any meeting at the DMZ.
Indicator of progress
It would be the third meeting between Trump and Kim, who met in Singapore last June and in Vietnam in February.
Since Vietnam, working-level negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have broken down because of disagreement over how to pace sanctions relief with the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
In recent weeks, Trump and Kim have exchanged personal letters, raising hopes the talks may get back on track. But it isn’t clear more top-level diplomacy can advance the talks, because neither side appears to have softened their negotiating position.
Even though most eyes will be on a possible Trump-Kim meeting, a key indicator of progress is whether North Korean counterparts meet with U.S. Special Representative Stephen Biegun, says Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
“Progress on inter-Korean relations and denuclearization requires that the Kim regime agree to working-level talks to negotiate next steps,” Easley says. Absent substantive talks, further summits with Kim “run the risk of appearing to accept North Korea as a nuclear state,” he adds.
Meeting at JSA?
It isn’t clear where along the 250-kilometer-long DMZ Trump intends to visit.
The Joint Security Area (JSA) has long been mentioned as a possible venue for a Trump-Kim meeting. The JSA, also known as the Panmunjom border village, is the only spot along the DMZ where North and South Korean soldiers can stand face-to-face.
Though the area would provide a dramatic setting for a high-profile summit, some fear a brief Trump-Kim meeting would be trivial unless accompanied by serious negotiations.
“The DMZ is too consequential a venue to be used simply as backdrop for a photo op,” said Daniel Russel, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific.
“And it is absolutely not the place to praise his ‘friend’ Kim, to complain about ‘freeloading’ allies, or to muse about withdrawing U.S. troops,” Russel added.
Past U.S. presidents have visited the DMZ to deliver messages on strengthening the U.S.-South Korea alliance, to pay respect to the troops, and to demonstrate a symbolic show of resolve against North Korea.
While Trump’s language may differ from that of past presidents, some analysts welcome a more conciliatory approach.
“While no major agreements will be signed, both sides can reaffirm their commitment to dialogue and diplomacy, essentially resetting the table for a future deal in the weeks and months to come,” said Harry Kazianis, senior director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest.
Wide gaps
There appear to be wide gaps between North and South Korea on how to proceed with nuclear talks.
Although Trump and Kim agreed in Singapore to work “toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” U.S. officials have acknowledged that Washington and Pyongyang do not agree on what “denuclearization” means.
North Korean officials have made clear they do not see “denuclearization” as Pyongyang unilaterally giving up its nuclear weapons. Instead, the North wants to see the U.S. take reciprocal steps, including ending U.S. and U.N. sanctions and providing various security guarantees.
In Hanoi, Kim offered to dismantle a key nuclear complex in exchange for the lifting of most U.N. sanctions. Trump rejected that offer, insisting that Kim agree to give up his entire nuclear weapons program before receiving sanctions relief.
Kim has given the U.S. until the end of the year to offer what it sees as an adequate counterproposal.
From: MeNeedIt
VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman in Osaka, Japan, and Dorian Jones in Istanbul contributed to this report.
U.S. President Donald Trump praised Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the two met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Japan, calling him a “friend of mine” who has done a “spectacular job.”
Trump said Saturday he appreciated Saudi Arabia’s purchase of U.S. military equipment and said the prince has worked to open up his country with economic and social reforms.
The U.S. president declined to respond to questions from the media on whether he would raise the issue of the death last year of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudi prince has faced international scrutiny since Khashoggi was killed in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul last year.
Following their working breakfast on Saturday, the White House said the two leaders had a productive meeting, discussing the growing threat from Iran, the need to ensure stability in global oil markets and the importance of human rights issues.
Trump is set to meet later Saturday with Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to restart trade negotiations between the countries that broke off last month.
Trump, asked by VOA News during his meeting Friday at the summit with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro whether he expects Xi to put a trade deal offer on the table Saturday, replied: “We’ll see what happens tomorrow. It’ll be a very exciting day, I’m sure, for a lot of people, including the world. … It’s going to come out hopefully well for both countries and ultimately it will work out.”
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said this week that Trump did not agree to any preconditions for the high-stakes meeting with Xi and was maintaining his threat to impose new tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump has threatened another $325 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, which would cover just about everything China exports to the U.S. that is not already covered by the current 25% tariff on $250 billion in Chinese imports.
China has slapped its own tariffs on U.S. products, including those produced by already financially strapped American farmers.
The chief of staff to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short, said Friday that the “best-case scenario” for Saturday’s talks would be a resumption of trade negotiations between the United States and China.
Eleven rounds of previous talks have failed to ease U.S. concerns about China’s massive trade surplus and China’s acquisition of U.S. technology.
The latest round of talks broke down in May, when Washington accused Beijing of going back on its pledge to change Chinese laws to enact economic reforms.
Neither the United Sates nor China has indicated it will back down from previous positions that led to the current stalemate.
Trump is also scheduled to meet Saturday with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The meeting is seen as the last chance to avoid a rupture in ties between the NATO allies over Turkey’s procurement of Russia’s S-400 missile system.
Before leaving for Japan, Erdogan played down the threat of sanctions. “I don’t know if NATO countries began to impose sanctions on each other. I did not receive this impression during my contact with Trump,” he said Wednesday to reporters.
The Turkish president told the Nikkei Asian Review, in an interview published Wednesday, that he was expecting a breakthrough with Trump.
“I believe my meeting with U.S. President Trump during the G-20 summit will be important for eliminating the deadlock in our bilateral relations and strengthening our cooperation,” he said.
From: MeNeedIt