The Trump-Kim Summit

Congress has worked under successive administrations to pressure the Kim regime, and in conjunction with the administration in multilateral efforts, this has occasionally brought us to inflection points-opportunities to change the course of this stubborn conflict. The United States has reached another of these crossroads. President Trump met with Kim Jong-un, the current scion of the dictatorial Kim dynasty. The word "historic" has been endlessly used to describe the meeting and that much is true. The two countries have never conducted direct leader-level talks before, and regardless of how these talks resolve, we can all be grateful that we are further from conflict. Simply holding a summit is not an accomplishment by itself. The administration has taken an important first step. But much work needs to be done. The joint statement that emerged from Singapore contains few specifics about how these talks will advance our ultimate goal-the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea. The statement, as our witnesses will testify, is generally similar to many statements North Korea has agreed to in the past, while making no good-faith efforts toward ever giving up its nuclear weapons. While North Korea agreed to nothing new, the United States took the unprecedented step to indefinitely suspend our joint military exercises with our ally, the Republic of Korea. There has been widespread disappointment regardless of party or affiliation that the United States would make these concessions when North Korea's only track record is for cheating and double dealing. Importantly, nothing would make China and Russia happier than for the United States to voluntarily scale back our strategic capabilities in northeast Asia.