On Thursday evening, South Korean official Chung Eui-yong made a stunning announcement at the White House: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had invited President Donald Trump to meet, and President Trump accepted.
Donald Trump will be the first sitting president to meet with North Korea
North Korea offers this to every president. Trump is the only one who took them up on it.
Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images
The exact terms of the meeting remain to be seen, but a tweet from President Trump asserts that North Korea has agreed to pause nuclear and missile exercises while sanctions remain ongoing.
Still, experts and journalists have expressed concern at the prospect given the fact that the president is notoriously easily swayed by praise. Vox’s Zack Beauchamp writes:
[Trump is] easily swayed by flattery, not terribly interested in policy details, and deeply invested in his reputation as a dealmaker. Put those together and it’s easy to imagine the North Koreans tricking Trump into a deal that, in the long term, helps their strategic position while hurting America’s.
Yochi Dreazen, Vox’s foreign editor, joins host Sean Rameswaram for the latest episode of Today, Explained to discuss the historical precedent for this meeting and what’s at stake.
Related reading:
- 9 questions about North Korea you were too embarrassed to ask (Alex Ward)
- North Korea is the ultimate test of Donald Trump’s dealmaking (Yochi Dreazen)
- The case for — and against — Trump’s North Korea policy (Zack Beauchamp)
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