In the process, Mr. Trump is upending the usual sequence of events in diplomacy: beginning with a leader-to-leader summit meeting, and then leaving the details to underlings. Without question, Mr. Trump has gotten farther with North Korea than any American president since that time. Indeed, Mr. Trump appears more willing to make concessions to North Korea than he is to Iran, which has a small fraction of the North’s nuclear infrastructure, and no nuclear weapons. That may partly reflect the fact that ending the threat from North Korea is Mr. Trump’s bid for history, much as Iran was Barack Obama’s bid. The diplomatic thaw initiated by Mr. Kim and South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, and endorsed by Mr. Trump, has already weakened the sanctions regime he spent more than a year marshaling.

Source: New York Times June 02, 2018 16:27 UTC