Yesterday’s historic summit between U.S. president Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore delivered a good result for Mr. Kim. He got a nice holiday, paid for by the Singaporean government (transit kindly arranged by the Chinese), met the president of the globe’s most powerful nation, giving him (a notorious human rights violator) instant dignity and prestige, and walked away with security guarantees (including Trump agreeing to halt “provocative” military exercises with South Korea, reportedly surprising both the South Koreans as well as the Pentagon) in return for vague, non-specified, promises to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. Economic sanctions are not yet lifted “…until we are sure that the nukes are no longer a factor”, although we suspect that China quietly will resume trading with its neighbour. Follow-up meetings will supposedly flesh out the details of the agreement.

Mr. Trump followed a diplomatically unusual path by agreeing to meet North Korea’s leader before any detailed agreement was prepared by his staff (maybe Donald expected to meet another Kim… the one who visited the White House recently). Of course, teams of both countries will now start to feverishly negotiate those details and Mr. Trump is adamant that he will succeed to bring peace to the peninsula, tweeting that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat and publicly musing about constructing hotels on North Korea’s beautiful beaches. Trump pitched his vision by use of a Hollywood trailer, aiming to persuade Kim that he too can be a hero by choosing peace and prosperity over nuclear weapons.

The other Kim…

We hope Mr. Trump is right and a comprehensive agreement will be signed later this year, or whenever, and the North starts to dismantle its nuclear weapons. However, history suggests that Mr. Kim’s intentions may not be entirely sincere. Negotiations most likely will turn out to be protracted, which plays into the cards of the North Koreans (assuming that China and South Korea [e.g. through Kaesong] will resume economic relations with the hermit kingdom, as is likely). Trump already acknowledged that it will take North Korea a long time to disarm. The good thing is that at least there will be a period of de-escalation of political tensions (and lower risk of an unintended war). The bad thing is that, again (after Obama in Syria), an U.S. president has been taken for a ride.

Mr. Trump, not known for his patience, meanwhile is likely to push for some sort of success now he has engaged with his new best friend, Mr. Kim. One possible outcome may be that North Korea gives up its long-range missiles (so-called ICBMs) in exchange for lifting of U.S. sanctions (and the security guarantees that Kim already bagged). Mr. Trump could realistically sell this as a victory at home (his voters not being the most savvy when it comes to international politics) as this way a potential threat by the little rocket man against the mighty U.S. has been removed. His disregard for the interests of America’s traditional allies (South Korea and Japan in this case) is by now well-known, as also Mr. Kim must be keenly aware of. Trump already hinted that stopping military exercises (“war games” in his words) with and returning troops from South Korea could save America a lot of money (another campaign promise, remember…).

Let’s hope Trump realizes in time that only a comprehensive agreement, requiring dismantlement of all nuclear (and, preferably, also ballistic) weapons including those that can hit South Korea and Japan covered by independent inspection and verification according to a strict timeline, is required to reach a peace deal with North Korea. He could take the Iran deal that he just ditched as a template, perhaps. Maybe the allies should enlist the other Kim to rub Trump up the right way…