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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump begin their one-on-one meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi hotel on Feb. 28. (AFP/Yonhap News)

The terms weren’t right.

This was the reason stated by US President Donald Trump on Feb. 28 for the failure to reach an agreement at his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Trump did not criticize Kim as lacking the willingness to denuclearize. Instead, he stressed that the two would maintain their good relationship. At the same time, he added that the agreement’s failure had been “about the sanctions.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo similarly said the two sides had “made some progress, but we didn’t get as far as we would have hoped to have gotten.” In other words, while the situation on paper was a breakdown in the summit, neither of the two leaders reverted to harsh criticisms of the other side.

Externally, the cause was a matter of the US demanding complete and irreversible dismantlement of all nuclear weapons coupled with North Korea demanding that all sanctions be lifted. A closer look at the remarks from Trump and Pompeo, however, shows the real issue to have been a difference in negotiating strategy: Kim’s idea of a tradeoff of sanctions relief in exchange for the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, and Trump’s insistence that Yongbyon alone was not enough to allow sanctions to be loosened. Evidence of this can be found in Trump’s remarks that the Yongbyon facility “wasn’t enough to do what we were doing.”

In fact, Kim had been offering Yongbyon “plus something extra” from the outset, on the condition that the US loosen its sanctions. Article 5-2 of the Pyongyang Joint Declaration from last September included a pledge from him to “take additional measures, such as the permanent dismantlement of the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, as the United States takes corresponding measures.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders posted a photo on her Instagram account of Kim and Trump shaking hands and saying goodbye at the end of their Hanoi summit on Feb. 28. (screenshot of Sanders’ Instagram account)

In addition to the level of denuclearization measures, Kim and Trump also appeared to have very different ideas about the methods of sanctions relief. Taken solely in terms of sanctions, the real issue is not one of the North insisting on a total removal while the US insists a partial one. The US appears to have indicated to the North that the best it could offer in terms of loosening sanctions at present would be a plan where exceptions are granted for specific inter-Korean economic cooperation projects while the international sanctions regime is left intact.

In contrast, Kim’s “Maginot line” appeared to be a removal of sanctions in particular areas – not exceptions, but a low-level loosening of the international sanctions. The only way available for it to clear the way to focus on its economy is through finding a way into economic cooperation with China in addition to South Korea.

“For Chairman Kim, even low-level sanctions relief that applied to North Korea-China economic cooperation rather than simple exceptions for inter-Korean economic cooperation may have been a line that he could not back down from,” said one former senior South Korean official.

While the two sides have failed for now in reaching an agreement in historic negotiations that are poised to decide the fate of peace on the Korean Peninsula, no immediate deterioration in the political situation or threat of a clash appears likely. Trump’s press conference remarks provide a hint of that. According to Trump, Kim promised not to engage in any additional nuclear testing or missile launches, while Trump himself said he did not plan to apply any additional sanctions. He also stressed that South Korea and the US would not be holding joint military exercises, which have drawn the most sensitive reaction from the North. Pompeo declared the two sides were “certainly closer today than we were 36 hours ago” and said he was hopeful an agreement could be reached “in the weeks ahead.” The message is that the US plans to pursue additional discussions rather than resorting to additional means of pressuring Kim into taking action to denuclearize.

Trump also mentioned “Reykjavik” during his press conference. In October 1986, then-US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev held a second summit in the Icelandic capital, which failed to produce any agreement. At a third summit in Washington 14 months later in December 1987, however, they signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) eliminating all land-based missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500km, laying a stepping stone toward the end of the Cold War. It remains to be seen whether today’s breakdown is simply part of the labor pains in producing a bigger, more historic agreement.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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