Victor Cha says Trump sees diplomacy as the pragmatic way to curb North Korea’s nuclear threat, potentially securing missile-test limits, a crisis hotline and a reduction in Pyongyang’s support for Russia.
As President Donald Trump looks to revive summit diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, he faces a North Korea with a larger nuclear arsenal, a powerful new partner in Russia and far less incentive to strike a deal than it had during his first term.
Trump’s renewed outreach comes as he remains locked in a nuclear standoff with Iran, reopening another piece of unfinished business from his first term. Unlike Iran, however, North Korea already possesses a mature nuclear arsenal and multiple delivery systems, leaving Trump with little prospect of eliminating the threat militarily and a narrower path to a deal than he had eight years ago.
Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump may see renewed North Korea diplomacy as both a chance to shift attention from Iran and an opportunity to reduce the number of adversaries confronting the United States.
"I think he frankly wants to take the headlines off of Iran," Cha told Fox News Digital, arguing that Trump also sees North Korea as a fundamentally different nuclear challenge. "There really isn't a military solution for a country like North Korea that has 50, 60, 70 nuclear weapons and several delivery systems for those weapons."
TRUMP REVEALS EXACT NUMBER OF NORTH KOREA'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS
President Donald Trump, right, stands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their summit on Sentosa Island in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
That leaves a sweeping denuclearization agreement increasingly out of reach. A more limited negotiation could instead focus on restricting nuclear and long-range missile tests, establishing crisis communications, weakening Pyongyang’s growing ties with Moscow or reaching a peace agreement that leaves Kim’s nuclear arsenal intact.
"There is no grand bargain with North Korea that quickly eliminates the country's nuclear arsenal," Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, told Fox News Digital. "North Korea can drive a harder bargain now than it could have in 2018."
Trump said this week that he expects to meet Kim before the end of the year. He has cast the personal relationship that produced their earlier meetings as an asset for restarting diplomacy.
"I get along with him," Trump said. "And you know what? The fact that I get along with him, that's a good thing, not a bad thing."
President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone in Panmunjom, South Korea, on June 30, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
A White House official told Fox News Digital on background that the leaders "will meet at the appropriate time," but the official did not provide a date, location or details about preparations.
Trump’s potential payoff is a limited agreement that reduces the immediate nuclear danger rather than eliminates North Korea’s arsenal. Cha identified several objectives short of denuclearization, including formally banning nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, reducing Pyongyang’s ties with Moscow and establishing a crisis-management channel between the United States and North Korea.
Cha said Trump is also likely interested in a peace declaration or treaty that would allow him to claim progress on a conflict that has remained technically unresolved since the 1953 armistice.
