The North Korea Summit

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Two of the world's most volatile leaders, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, are engaged in a whirling back and forth of diplomacy.

The stakes couldn't be higher.

Could Kim and Trump actually seal a deal?

And is it a deal the world would want?

This is Radio Atlantic.

Greetings, everyone.

Welcome to Radio Atlantic.

I am Alex Wagner, contributing editor at The Atlantic, in for Matt Thompson, who is out gallivanting across the globe.

We miss him.

He'll be back next week.

I am here.

Get ready, buckle up.

I'm here in New York City with who?

Our fearless leader, Jeffrey Goldberg, my esteemed colleague.

Oh, hi, Alex.

That was quite a buildup.

Thank you very much.

What the enthusiasm can't be contained in this.

I'm just trying to contain myself.

Just trying to contain myself.

And with us down in Washington is Kathy Gilsonen, the Atlantic's Global Editor.

Hello, Kathy.

Hi, Alex.

And also with her in D.C.

is staff writer Uri Friedman, who covers global affairs for us.

Hey, guys.

Hey,

good to be with you guys.

It is an exciting time to be alive and to do a podcast.

Folks, today we are going to talk about a little place called North Korea.

A few days from now, a North Korean head of state will meet with a sitting United States president for the first time in history.

We think.

Or so the demise today.

Yeah, let's just be, yes.

We still have multiple days left.

No, this is one of our subjects today.

Will it ever actually happen?

It's like a seasoned finale of the bachelor.

You just don't know how it's going to end.

President Trump is heading to Singapore to meet with Kim Jong-un.

And

I want to go to you guys down in D.C.

first because this is your Métier, your specialty, foreign affairs.

And Uri, you've just been in the region.

So let's talk first about the sort of the top line issue here, which is the meeting itself.

Is it going to actually happen?

What's your over-under?

Oh, I think it's going to happen.

I think we're most likely past the point where it could break down.

I mean, Donald Trump also has to fly to Singapore.

So this thing is going to start very soon.

And I think he is likely to meet with Kim Jung-when.

My big question is

what actually comes out of this?

And I could, you know, I could see a listen, the best case scenario, right, is North Korea declares all of its nuclear facilities, it has a detailed roadmap for denuclearization, it allows in international inspectors, and Donald Trump offers all these big concessions in return.

Maybe Moon Jae-in from South Korea, the president, flies in on the second day and they declare an end to the war.

Maybe there's a party afterwards, Dennis Rodman does a toast, and you know, this is all, this is all like a perfect thing.

But there's also a lot of bad case scenarios right and one is it's not inconceivable that there's a blow up and you know donald trump walks out he's threatened to do so and we're back to you know once you reach the highest point there's not much elsewhere to go in terms of how you do diplomacy and so that could lead back to a time of military threats and economic pressure but a second bad case scenario I think that is is not the meeting falling apart is one in which

there's a lot of concessions made to North Korea, big dramatic gestures, and North Korea doesn't really agree to anything tangible.

And I think that is something that could be a real concern.

Aaron Powell, right, because it takes a long time to denuclearize, and it takes a long time to prove that you have denuclearized.

But potentially for the U.S.

to make any concessions,

these are things, you know, we could make these concessions immediately, right?

Things like recognizing North Korea.

Like, what does North Korea want from us, basically, as a condition for whatever promises they might want to make?

Well, I think it's helpful to think of things in different buckets.

So, there's economic concessions, so things like easing of sanctions, also potentially economic assistance and investment.

Then, there's security guarantees, which are really big.

I would say that's the most important thing.

So, that could be things like a non-aggression pact saying we're not going to attack you.

Things like normalizing diplomatic relations with North Korea so that we have an embassy in Pyongyang and we are no longer adversaries who don't talk to one another.

And then there's also political concessions as well.

One political concession we're making right away is that we are meeting with Kim Jong-un.

The President of the United States is doing that, and that has never happened before.

Traditionally, in 25 years of negotiating with North Korea, a presidential meeting with the head of North Korea has been considered something that you do at the very end of the process, the kind of cherry on top of a denuclearization deal.

Right.

Uri, what are the chances that, even if this actually does happen, what are the chances that it actually works?

Low.

And I need an exact percentage.

Well, and define working.

Like what would happen?

Well, where you have a successful negotiation that leads to the denuclearization of North Korea and a peace treaty between South Korea and North Korea.

Yeah,

I think on

denuclearization, the place where things always break down is

in the past when we've actually made some progress on removing North Korea's nuclear weapons is verification.

So how do we verify that what North Korea is saying it's doing, it's actually doing?

And I talked to the the former Defense Secretary Bill Perry, who has made a very modest goal for these talks, which is North Korea freezing all its development of nuclear weapons and not further doing nuclear tests or missile tests, because you know when a rocket, you know, flies in the air, right?

You know when a nuclear bomb is exploded, but it's very hard to know.

You sure do.

You definitely do.

And you know, it's very hard when if North Korea says, we have 10 nuclear weapons and we are giving them up, how do you know they don't have 11 or 20?

And North Korea has resisted efforts in the past to have very stringent efforts to verify.

So that's where I could see a breakdown.

I think there is one way this could succeed.

And this is one of the really interesting questions that we may find out more about in this summit, which is a rolling back of recent progress that is a direct threat to the United States.

So the reason the United States has made North Korea its top issue is one, the Trump administration has prioritized it, but two, it's because in July, everything changed.

On July 4th, North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile.

That meant that it was close, if not already at the point in which it could put a warhead on that missile and directly threaten the U.S.

mainland.

And it was around that time when North Korea became the top security threat to the United States and not terrorism as ISIS started being defeated.

And so if there is a way that the Trump administration could accept North Korea saying, okay, well, you know what?

We're not going to test any more long-range missiles.

We're not going to develop that further.

Maybe we even destroy some of those missiles.

And, you know,

we blunt the direct threats to the United States, including also potentially a threat that North Korea says it will not export its nuclear technology to other countries or other actors, which is a big U.S.

concern because that could get in the hands of terrorists or other adversaries.

There's a world in which it succeeds just by North Korea agreeing to roll back the parts of its nuclear program.

that directly threaten the United States.

Now, that, though, creates a huge headache for South Korea and Japan because they're still threatened with nuclear weapons.

And it would also potentially be a tacit acknowledgement that North Korea is a nuclear weapon state, right?

So, if the U.S.

says, okay, that's great, we'll make a deal on that.

Well, North Korea still has a lot of other parts of its nuclear program that would remain intact, and

it could really value that recognition as a nuclear weapon state.

So, Ori and Kathy,

recognizing the limitations of all analogies, is there a chance that even if this goes well, this ends

in a deal that is actually on the merits weaker than the Iran deal?

I think that the best case scenario for any deal that could come out of this summit is a much weaker version of the Iran deal, just because the starting point is that North Korea has nuclear weapons.

It is much, I mean, not admittedly not ever having done it before, but

it is much easier to convince a country not to get nuclear weapons than it is to convince a country to give up nuclear weapons.

And Ori has done a lot of work work on this.

What are the historical examples?

Is there any historical example of a country doing what we're now asking the North Koreans to do?

There is exactly one.

What is it?

Yeah, it is South Africa.

There's only one country.

You guys aren't rehearsing anything in Washington, are you?

Tap dance that follows this.

There's only one country that has done it and that has removed nuclear weapons that it both built and controlled.

Because there are other countries like Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union, right?

But they never had full operational control over those weapons and they did give them up.

But South Africa did it, but I mean

the reason South Africa did it is one, they were trying to get more international recognition and easing of sanctions because of apartheid.

And also the Soviet Union had collapsed and they developed nuclear weapons because they were concerned about the Soviet Union.

So there was a transformation in their perception of security threats.

But also it's important to point out that South Africa had a few like crude Hiroshima style bombs that it would plan to potentially just either declare or maybe even detonate in tunnels just to get America's attention in the case that the Soviet Union was threatening them.

Their program was nothing compared to how sophisticated North Korea's nuclear program.

What about Libya's program?

What about the much-vaunted Libya program?

Oh, well, that's the subject.

Let's talk about Libya and John Bolton, right?

Yeah.

And let's not.

No, no, I'm doing it.

I'm so excited to talk about John Bolton and Libya, but Alex, you go.

So before we get to Qaddafi, I do wonder if you could tell us a little bit more about what the nuclear program means, because you've written about this.

It's not just a weapons program.

It's actually a form of national identity, right?

I mean, there's a belief on the part of North Koreans that the nuclear program is their biggest bargaining chip.

Yeah, they see it.

I mean, one, I think they see it as fundamental to their survival, right?

So that this is the way you deter the United States.

And also, I talked to a North Korean defector when I was in South Korea who talked about how it's framed not just as as a way to ward off U.S.

attack, but also as a way for North Korea to develop economically and prosper.

Because the idea is if we are a nuclear armed state, countries like Russia and the United States have to take us seriously and they'll deal and they'll make concessions and economic concessions.

So it is considered

fundamental to their identity.

So the real challenge that U.S.

officials have right now is how do you convince North Korea that their security, their very identity as a nation,

is more endangered by having nuclear weapons than not having them.

That is really hard to do.

What the Trump administration is trying to do right now is to convince them through diplomatic negotiations, through big concessions, through transforming the relationship itself, that that is the case.

Another way to do that is through sanctions and military threats, which is what the U.S.

was trying before this period of diplomacy, which is saying, we are going to sanction you so much and pressure your economy so much that you're on the verge of collapse, and that'll convince you that you should go down a different path.

So that is what the Trump administration is trying to navigate.

And stick.

You might call it maximum pressure and engagement.

All I know is that if I were the dictator of North Korea, I would not give up my nuclear weapons, given what happened in Libya, given what happened to Saddam Hussein.

I mean, we would not have invaded, the United States would not have invaded Iraq if Saddam had already been a nuclear power.

had already had nuclear weapons.

I mean, it just doesn't, this is why this whole thing seems ill-starred from the start, because there's no, there's no, John Bolton is exactly right.

I mean, that's why he's possibly been sidelined here

because Trump is so eager to have a deal.

But Bolton is exactly right.

I mean, Libya is the model, whether or not you want to articulate that or not.

Am I wrong?

I mean, how much do they talk about that, do you think, Yuri?

I mean, like,

how much is that looming in the back of Kim Jong-un's mind?

Oh, it's clearly in their mind.

I mean,

there are commentaries from their state-run media going back years

talking about how Gaddafi and Saddam are cautionary tales.

They are not models of giving up your weapons program.

They are cautionary tales of what happens when you do.

And I think that is why this, you know, when John Bolton talked about the Libya model, the talks broke down for a week.

And ever since, the Trump administration has been backing away from that kind of rhetoric because they realize this is probably the most sensitive aspect of how North Korea sees its nuclear weapons.

And the North Koreans were saying in official statements two weeks ago that

we're we're not Libyans,

we're not Iraqis, and actually did point to the analogy that stated explicitly that this is what happened to these guys after they gave up their weapons.

Yeah.

And I think more broadly than the question is,

if it's really going to be extremely hard to convince Kim Jong-un

to give up his nuclear weapons, what can be done to address this threat?

Because it is a direct threat to the United States.

We've never had a country like North Korea possessing nuclear weapons that can directly threaten the United States.

The only countries that have those weapons are China and Russia right now.

Aaron Ross Powell, but they do.

I mean, in technical terms, the Soviet Union did threaten the United States, and China did technically threaten the United States.

So, what are you saying is the difference?

Or what would

the mental stability of the leadership?

And what would H.R.

You wrote a great piece on H.R.

McMaster was making this argument a while back when he was national security advisor that the analogy to the Soviet Union and China doesn't hold because traditional deterrence doesn't work with a leader like this.

So what does he mean by that?

What did he mean by that?

Yeah, I think the argument was that, one, there was a question of whether just Kim Jong-un has a different calculus than these other leaders, which a lot of experts dispute.

They say he's a rational actor.

He would behave

with incentives from the United States to

not use his nuclear weapons just like the Soviet Union was deterred and just like China was deterred.

But I think it's wrong to think of North Korean nuclear threat to the United States just in terms of whether he would actually use those weapons against the United States.

H.R.

McMaster was very concerned about this idea of nuclear blackmail.

So this idea that we're going to hold, you know, Los Angeles at risk or Washington, D.C.

at risk unless you do X or Y or

you being aggressive towards South Korea and then knowing that the United States will not be able to forcefully respond because they're concerned about the direct nuclear threat to the United States.

So there was that concern.

There's also a concern, I think, that North Korea is a is a rogue actor that doesn't play by any international rules.

And while you could potentially, in some cases, make that argument in certain periods with China or Russia, they were more invested in the international system.

And so one of the big concerns for U.S.

officials is if you have someone that's never playing by the rules and that potentially has clandestine black networks,

black market networks with

other adversaries of the United States or non-state actors like terrorist groups, what's the proliferation threat from that?

And we can't allow North Korea to get to such an advanced stage of its nuclear program that it could share that nuclear technology or nuclear weapons with those adversaries of the United States, some of whom, like terrorist groups, would not be afraid to use them.

And so I think that that is the larger concern that U.S.

officials have where they say this is different.

And I think then the question becomes, okay, so if we're not going to be able to convince him to fully give up his nuclear weapons, how do we deal with this?

You know, like what are the policy responses?

And I think we're seeing this with the Iran deal too, too, and Trump withdrawing from it.

It's like this much bigger question right now about, okay, there are these adversaries of the United United States that aren't major superpowers like Russia and the Soviet Union.

They're Iran, they're North Korea.

How do you blunt the threat from the United States?

Do you transform the relationship and call him Kamrad Kim Jong-un and try to be like best friends with him?

Do you transform the regimes?

Yes.

Right, that guy shines John Paul.

And I said, do you do a kind of a more strict arms control agreement like the Obama administration did?

You know, one interesting thing when I was in Seoul, I spoke to John DeLore, who's an expert on Korea at Yon Sai

University, and he was arguing that one difference between the Iran deal that the Obama administration negotiated and what Trump seems to be doing when he's being very friendly to Kim Jong-un, which depending on the day he is or isn't, is that Donald Trump is trying to transform the relationship, you know,

as a way to get North Korea to make concessions on the nuclear program.

The Obama administration was negotiating more of a kind of strict arms control agreement.

There were elements of it that were about transforming the relationship.

Obama talked to President Rouhani of Iran.

There was a thought that there would be more investment in Iran from European and potentially American companies, and that can make Iran come into the fold more.

But it wasn't as much about let's just completely see if we can become friends with this country as opposed to enemies.

All right, my friends, we are going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we'll have much more on the UN Trump Summit and whether it is star-crossed or heaven-sent.

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Welcome back.

I'm Alex Wagner.

This is Radio Atlantic.

And we are talking about the strange, interesting, unfolding drama between the United States, South Korea, and North Korea.

So, Ori, are you saying that Donald Trump believes that he can turn the Hermit Kingdom into a friend by applying his personal charm and

sort of argument abilities?

I mean, what do we

can do?

Donald Trump may believe that.

No, no, no, but I'm very curious about this because

if you have any insight into how they might view Donald Trump, do they see him as crazy?

Do they see him as malleable?

Are they charmed by him?

Do you have any insight into that?

Anybody in Seoul have any insight into that?

Yeah, I think, you know, some people said that they thought that Trump's unpredictability and his ability to

just be completely unconventional did play a role in North Korea deciding that it was open to negotiations and open to diplomatic engagement.

And

I think they also do feel that this is a president unlike any president we've dealt with in the past.

And

so maybe there's something there in terms of we can get what we have never been able to get before.

And indeed they already have, right?

They have a summit with the United States president.

Yeah, but I think beyond that, they they probably think, and some people, you know, some experts I spoke to hinted at this, they might think Donald Trump might be willing to make concessions and no one else is able to make.

Right, because there's the question of like how badly Trump just wants a deal, any deal.

That's not to shortchange the deal-making that he has done, right?

You've written about this, that he has been realistic in these talks, ramping up pressure on North Korea, but at the same time, encouraging South Korean President Moo Jae-in to talk with North Korea.

It sounds like there's been some actual

statecraft here as far as the U.S.

negotiating.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah, no, I think there has.

I mean, I think the United States has led

one on international sanctions and done a really good job of leading the international community on bringing a lot of pressure to bear on North Korea.

And I do think Donald Trump is really, he has talks about this himself, that he wants to transform the relationship.

And on North Korea, from North Korea's perspective, you know, if you remember, Donald Trump during the campaign talked a lot about withdrawing U.S.

forces or at least withdrawing U.S.

forces from Korea or at least getting South Korea to pay more.

And one of North Korea's long-term goals has been to end the U.S.

military alliance with South Korea.

And so I think they may also see, well, maybe if

Donald Trump is very concerned about direct threats to the homeland, they may think...

Maybe we can reach a deal with this president to attenuate or end the U.S.

alliance with South Korea in exchange for us making serious concessions on our nuclear program.

Is this a situation in which the North Koreans believe they're dealing with a sucker and Donald Trump believes they're dealing with the, that he's dealing with suckers?

Does everyone think they're dealing with suckers?

Everyone thinks they're about to gain leverage on the other party because the other party is not a sophisticated.

Like a Quentin Tarantino gunfight.

Well, I was yes.

It's like that.

Everyone's pulling it out.

It's like that bearhouse scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Which doesn't end well, by the way.

No, no, Tarantino movies do end well, actually.

Yeah.

Yes, I think that that is a break.

What question are you doing?

It is a question to our Tarantino retrospective.

No, but everybody believes that they have leverage on the other.

And does that work out in the end?

Does that work out, period?

I think someone ends, potentially someone ends up being the sucker.

And that's why I think, and the thing is, you know, like North Korea has a much longer institutional memory than the Trump administration in general has.

There are some people, Bolton has has been dealing with these things for many years,

but there are ways, you know, while Kim Jong-un may be a young 30-something leader, he, a lot of his advisors have been doing this for decades.

And they know ways to make concessions on their nuclear program that contain many loopholes that give them a lot of flexibility over time.

And so one,

you know, concern would be that they offer something that seems like a great opportunity.

And the Trump administration, with many people who have not dealt with this for long periods, seize on it as a good deal and they end up being the sucker in this scenario.

How much is Trump actually driving this

versus the other actors in the region?

And in particular, the South Korean president, who has been pushing hard, campaigned on a platform of trying to engage with the North Koreans.

What is his role in all this?

really overlooked compared to Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump.

And there's a reason for that.

I mean, it's much easier to be paying attention to these two gigantic personalities who are trading threats and then loving each other the next day.

But

South Korea is a really important

third wheel in this relationship.

I might even say, you know what?

I'm going to go a step further.

International nuclear diplomacy with North Korea is kind of like a tricycle.

So bear with me here.

So it's like, you know, I think South Korea's president's the front wheel, and Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump are the back wheels.

And he has been out in front, you know, ever since this diplomatic period has started, basically in the late fall and certainly in the winter.

He has been out front, kind of gaining confidence of both leaders, going from one to the other and, you know, transmitting promises that they may or may not have always committed to fully.

And Moon Jae-eye has this larger vision that he's wanted to implement since he became president last spring, which is I want peace on the Korean peninsula.

You know, he believes in this thing called the Sunshine Policy, which has been a policy that South Korean presidents have pursued for many years now.

And he is kind of an heir to that program.

And it's this idea that we want to

engage with North Korea.

The best way to resolve a stalemate of conflict on the peninsula is through diplomacy.

But his innovation has been to bring the United States along with South Korea and to not alienate the United States as a result of that.

And

he gave a big speech in Berlin in July.

This was during the kind of fire and fury period, in which he laid out basically everything we're seeing today, in which he laid out ways for there to be an inter-Korean summit and then

to work on declaring the end of the war and then to have denuclearization be an end goal along with a peace treaty that's a non-aggression pact.

So he's been wanting to do this for a while, but when he started,

the Trump administration was really focused on his maximum pressure campaign.

And I think that

because Moon Jae-in felt the U.S.

alliance was so important and you needed that as an anchor in order to improve inter-Korean relations, he subscribed to that for a long time and didn't really push his agenda.

But

in the fall and especially in the winter, when suddenly Kim Jong-un in his New Year's Day speech pivoted to diplomacy, I mean, Moon Jae-in moved incredibly quickly to jump on that.

And we should note that that same speech set off the button measuring contest between,

wasn't Kim in the same speech talking about his nuclear button and then Trump responding about his button being bigger?

But ironically, or not ironically, I don't know what the correct term is for this, for this crazy thing that happened.

That was the moment you might argue, and I think I have heard you argue, that was the moment that diplomacy really started to kick into high gear.

Yeah, it turned out the nuclear button measuring contest was kind of a sideshow.

Who would have guessed?

Yeah, and that this was actually a moment when we kind of, this was really the hinge moment when we moved from the fire and fury period to the peace and patronage period.

You know, this is when we really,

because while Donald Trump was kind of engaging in this back and forth on Twitter, I was speaking to a top foreign policy advisor to the South Korean president.

And he was telling me that actually, right after this New Year's Day speech in early January, Trump had a call with Moon Jae-in.

And in that call, Trump did two things that were really important that kind of helped set off this period of summitry.

And one was he blessed North Korea's talks with South Korea.

And then he also decided to postpone U.S.

South Korean military exercises till after the Olympics.

And so Trump was actually deciding to go ahead with this diplomacy, even as he was, you know, engaging in Twitter brinksmanship with Kim Jong-un.

And I think one thing that might have happened there is I think Moon Jae-in, who seems to be a very good broker and facilitator of dialogue, may have read correctly that while Donald Trump was a tough talker, he didn't actually want a military conflict.

You know, Donald Trump's base

likes tough talk, but doesn't necessarily like long wars.

It's another war in the Korean Peninsula.

And I think that he may have correctly read into that from Trump.

He gave Trump something that he actually wanted.

So to lift up, Ori,

what does that say about the Trump doctrine to the extent that there is a coherent Trump doctrine?

I think he sees a lot of value in coercion and coercive transactionalism.

So I think he actually feels that that.

Did you just make up coercive transactionalism?

I was just giving him a thumbs up in the studio for the coin engine.

Is that yours?

That's good.

No, I.

Correct the man.

No one denies this.

No, I can't take full credit for it.

I've heard people like Colin Call is someone who's a former foreign policy advisor to President Obama and also Joe Biden, who has made similar points.

But I think he feels, and I think he actually sees.

So you're plagiarizing.

I rescind my thumbs.

But yeah, borrow with credit.

No, but

I I think that he really does see

the

North Korea approach as a model to follow, which is to say that...

Well, right, as of right now.

As of right now.

We don't know how this story ends.

Exactly, exactly.

But the idea is you apply enough pressure, you can get what you want.

And I think

what's been most interesting about the way that that's been applied in terms of the Trump doctrine is it seems to be that he thinks this could work for adversaries and allies alike.

One really interesting illustrative thing, I think, was that this past week, we saw him meet with number two man in North Korea in the Oval Office and kind of praise how the relationship was developing and be very friendly at the same time that he was...

adding tariffs on European allies and Mexico and Canada on national security grounds.

And both of these were about, you know, applying pressure and then trying to wring concessions as a result of that pressure.

And I think that is one model that North Korea shows.

I would like to know what Jeffrey Goldberg thinks about even doctrinaire politics as it concerns Donald Trump.

You wrote that definitive story, the Obama doctrine.

Do you even think there is a Trump doctrine given the people that surround him on foreign policy matters?

Well, I mean,

there's an easy answer to this, which is not having a doctrine is a form of a doctrine.

I don't know.

It's too early yet

to figure out what the doctrine.

I like coercive transactionalism.

I mean, there is this doctrine.

I mean,

there's a cynical doctrine that's at work.

You have a president who does not even pay lip service the idea that America plays some kind of idealistic role in the world, that he doesn't like America to play an organizing or policing role in the world.

I don't see much yet that's coherent, but of course, we don't see that coherence on the domestic side either.

But i think it's possible to do to begin to discern patterns of behavior um there is this kind of um

i i don't we don't know if this is spontaneous or planned but there is the sort of there are hints of the crazy nixon approach to to foreign policy which is if your adversaries believe you're crazy they might actually check their worst behavior because they don't know how you're going to right that seems to be playing out this was this was a problem of barack obama's in a way he was so logical and people assumed that he was so responsible that he would never do anything precipitous or or crazy um and trump is obviously not like obama there's the statement there's the obvious statement of all time um but no i mean the what what what what what we're seeing um here is the idea of um negotiation uberalis or or the the the the art of the deal taken to that that all that all foreign policy is is just deal making transactional deal making

And there's nothing, there's no higher urges, there's no higher ideals, there's no higher understanding of the post-World War II international order.

There's just deals for the sake of deals.

The reason I asked before, sorry to go on at length about that, but the reason I asked before about the Iran deal is that the thing that Donald Trump doesn't actually understand the Iran deal, I don't think.

What he understands is that Barack Obama is responsible for the Iran deal.

That was enough for him to undermine this.

I think at the end of the day, in North Korea,

we might find that he negotiates a deal.

The big deal maker makes a deal that's actually weaker than the deal that Barack Obama and John Kerry made.

But again, it's all about him, and it's all about being able to sell a transaction as beneficial.

to the United States.

So I want to pick up on that point about it's it may be too early to discern a doctrine, but it is possible to discern patterns.

And

there are two types of patterns that that I think we're observing now.

One is the,

I guess you could call it the ideological pattern of transactionalism, but you can also observe tactical patterns in terms of just the sort of speak loudly and carry a stick of indeterminate size

type of approach, which I, and in particular with regard to North Korea, this has been sort of a fascinating case study because you have seen sort of this bluster forward approach of

threaten everything and potentially not do anything, but rely on, you know, what Schelling would call the threat that leaves something a chance, that like that the North Koreans don't actually know whether this guy is crazy enough to initiate another conflict on the Korean peninsula.

So there's the bluster, the step back.

You know, we've seen a lot of instances

across various realms, both domestic and foreign, where

Trump has said an outrageous thing and then not followed through, right?

Has folded and stepped back.

But as a consequence of the bluster itself, it has gotten people freaked out enough to potentially make concessions.

And then, and in the North Korea, I think one thing, to pick up on the Iran deal analogy, one thing that's been interesting to observe in the whole drama of the will they won't they summit when Trump just decided, you know, the North Koreans weren't holding up their end of the summit preparation bargain, even.

You know, the North Koreans stood up some U.S.

officials who were doing logistics in Singapore, and Trump said, you know what, screw it, I don't feel like doing it.

I think the fact that he is willing to walk away in a way that the Iranians may have seen, you know, Kerry and Obama weren't necessarily,

I think that that could actually, I mean, I don't know, as a tactic, it's new and interesting.

Like you did actually see a change in behavior from the North Koreans after that happened, however erratic and haphazard the

spectacle was.

You know, they did start participating in the logistical stuff.

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.: You know, if we've we've gotten one thing from all of this back and forth between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, it is amazing in an amazing, amazing teenage heartbreak style letter from the President of the United States to the Supreme Leader of North Korea.

I hate you.

I love you.

I hate you.

It really is.

Write or call me anytime if you change your mind.

Yeah.

I mean, that's something worth framing.

And also, like, if you're a 13-year-old going through a complicated breakup, it's a good template.

I'm just not saying, just saying.

Guys, we know what we don't know about this North Korean summit, and that's something, right?

That is something.

That's something,

and that's where we're going to have to leave this episode.

Is this where you say only time will tell?

Only, friends, only time will tell.

I'm quoting, I'm doing awkward quotes of Donald Rumsfeld and ending on boring platitudes.

You're welcome, America.

You're welcome for this episode of Radio Atlantic.

Thank you, Kathy and Uri, for your brilliant thoughts.

Thanks, Alice.

Thank you for information.

Thanks.

It's always good to have you guys in studio, Jeffrey Goldberg.

Thank you.

May this not be the last time we share a small, uncomfortably hot recording screen.

It's not cool.

It is not cool in here.

It's just because the

fire and fury.

Singapore in summertime.

That's the climate right in this booth, by the way.

Get used to it.

All right, that'll do it for this week of Radio Atlantic.

This episode was produced and edited by Kevin Townsend with production support from Kim Lau.

Catherine Wells is our executive producer for podcasts.

Our esteemed colleague, Matt Thompson, will be back from gallivanting next week.

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