The Hanoi Summit – We Asked Leon Sigal What Happens Next in U.S.-North Korea Relations

Leon V. Sigal

Security, Asia

"The need now is to resume talks, the sooner the better, with the aim of having both sides offer a little more to each other."

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un both overreached at the Hanoi summit, demanding too much and offering too little. Yet each side put enough on the negotiating table for the makings of a deal. The need now is to resume talks, the sooner the better, with the aim of having both sides offer a little more to each other.

The months of meetings between the two sides’ diplomatic and intelligence officials leading up to the summit satisfied some of both countries’ demands. In an October meeting with Secretary of State Pompeo, according to Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, Kim made an unprecedented offer: “dismantlement and destruction of North Korea’s plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities…and more.” Addressing North Korean desires for an end to enmity—reconciliation—Washington first suspended and then scaled down joint exercises on the Korean Peninsula, offered to negotiate an end-of-war declaration and exchange liaison offices. America also rightly backed off from demanding a complete inventory of the North’s nuclear and missile assets. Instead, Washington sought access to Pyongyang’s plutonium reactors, reprocessing and enrichment sites, as well as its nuclear test sites, uranium mines, ore refining plants, and uranium hexafluoride plant. All of this would let America assess how much fissile material the North could have produced. Since U.S. intelligence estimates vary widely, this nuclear archeology would have reduced uncertainty and headed off premature disagreement over the amounts of material Pyongyang had. However, where Washington came up short was sanctions relief.