President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that the North Korean regime no longer poses a nuclear threat following his summit with Kim Jong Un, even though the meeting produced no verifiable proof that the rogue regime will discontinue its nuclear program.
In a series of tweets, Trump sought to take political credit for the summit but risked undermining the US strategy in the region.
“Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office,” Trump tweeted as he arrived back in Washington. “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”
Trump also said that his meeting with Kim was an “interesting and very positive experience” and that “North Korea has great potential for the future!”
Trump also said in a separate tweet that North Korea is “no longer” the US’ “biggest and most dangerous problem,” telling Americans and the rest of the world they can “sleep well tonight!”
After returning to the White House Wednesday, Trump also defended his decision to halt the joint military exercises with South Korea, which he called “war games” – a term used by Pyongyang – arguing on Twitter that the US will “save a fortune.”
Trump’s tweets pointed to one of the chief gains at the summit from the US point of view – that its scheduling and the establishing of a relationship between the President and Kim have eased fears that the two sides are on a slide toward a disastrous war.
The argument also allows Trump’s political allies and supporters in conservative media to claim ahead of the midterm elections that the President has engineered a triumph overseas that was beyond all his predecessors and has made America and the world much safer.
But much of the fear over imminent war last year was stoked in the first place by Trump’s “fire and fury” rhetoric and boasts about the size of the US nuclear button.
No guarantees from summit
After nearly five hours of unprecedented talks between Trump and Kim on Tuesday, the two leaders signed a document in which Kim “reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” and the US agreed to “provide security guarantees.”
However, there was no mention of the previous US aim of “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” from Pyongyang. Kim’s commitments did not appear to go beyond what he already pledged to do in April when he met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in along their countries’ border.