HANOI, Vietnam (NBC) – President Trump has left Washington, headed to Vietnam for his second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The president is lowering expectations for North Korea’s denuclearization, but he is eager to come home from the summit with a substantial accomplishment.
He’ll arrive here in Hanoi at around 9:00 EST Tuesday morning.
Kim Jong-un has taken a very different route by train, two-and-a-half thousand miles across China. It will take him two-and-a-half days. So he’s clearly in no rush. And politically, President
Trump says he’s in no rush either. He said, “I’m not in a hurry as long as there’s no nuclear testing, I’m happy.”
The president added, “I think we’ll have a very tremendous summit. We want denuclearization and I think he will have a country that will set a lot of records for speed in terms of economy.”
This summit will be rather different from that very first historic summit in Singapore, which was as much about symbol as it was about substance. If you like, the message was in the meeting.
With this one, there has to be some concrete results at the end of it. We’re not sure what those will be. But president Moon of South Korea has hinted that it’s possible the two men will declare an end to the Korean War.
But whether or not there’s movement on the complete, verifiable and irreversible, denuclearization of North Korea—which is U.S. policy—well, that remains to be seen.
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