Last June, President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un discussed denuclearizing North Korea at an historic summit in Singapore. Trump and his administration touted the meeting as an incredible success, with Trump even claiming that North Korea would start the denuclearization process “very, very quickly.”
Now nearly eight months later, and with no progress since their meeting, the Trump administration has announced a second summit with Kim to be held in late February in Vietnam.
Charles Sennott, executive director ofThe GroundTruth Project, told Boston Public Radio Monday that he does “not have faith” that this second meeting will bring the world any closer to a denuclearize North Korea.
“I don’t see any movement in a positive direction that is substantive,” he said. “I don’t see any of the pieces coming together for the hard work of diplomacy that it really takes to do something as complex as a denuclearization deal with North Korea.”
Sennott believes that the second meeting could be being used by the administration as a diversion from the onslaught of problems currently facing Trump, instead of a humanitarian mission to reduce the nuclear arsenal of a unpredictable dictator.
“This is a presidency that thrives on the theater of distraction," Sennott said. "I think a lot of this is just Trump just wanting to show there are other things going on.”
