President Trump heralded his upcoming summit with the leader of North Korea and reiterated his belief that Kim Jong Un would opt to dump his nuclear arsenal in exchange for economic riches.
“Meeting for breakfast with our Nation’s Governors – then off to Vietnam for a very important Summit with Kim Jong Un,” Trump wrote on his Twitter account. “With complete Denuclearization, North Korea will rapidly become an Economic Powerhouse. Without it, just more of the same. Chairman Kim will make a wise decision!”
After meeting with the nation’s governors at the White House, Trump will head to Joint Base Andrews, where he’ll take off on Air Force One for Vietnam and his second summit in a year with Kim.
The president is expected to arrive in Hanoi on Tuesday.
Kim, whose official aircraft is a 39-year-old Soviet-made airliner, trekked the 2,800 miles from Pyongyang to Hanoi in an armored train.
It’s unclear why Kim decided to travel by train to Hanoi.
He flew on an Air China jet for his summit last June in Singapore with Trump.
The two are expected to meet one-on-one with only translators during the talks Wednesday and Thursday.
Speaking to a gathering of the nation’s governors during a breakfast at the White House Monday, Trump touted his relationship with Kim.
“We talk about something that frankly he never spoke to anybody about, but we’re speaking and we’re speaking loud, and frankly I think we’re going to have a tremendous summit,” Trump said.
Trump and Kim engaged in a war of words when North Korea test-fired missiles on the peninsula, including sending some soaring over Japan, and threatened to strike the US territory of Guam in the Pacific.
The president called Kim “Rocket Man” and warned he would loose “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if North Korea continued to make threats against the US or its allies.
In response to Trump’s moniker for Kim, North Korea referred to the president as a “mentally deranged dotard” — an elderly person with deteriorating faculties.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo downplayed expectations on Sunday and said that anybody expecting a huge breakthrough on denuclearization during the Trump-Kim meetings will be disappointed.
“There may have to be another summit. We may not get everything done this week. We hope we’ll make a substantial step along the way,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
But Democratic Sen. Ed Markey said he was concerned with Trump meeting one-on-one with Kim.
“Right now, it’s pretty clear that Kim wants to have a personal meeting with Trump with hopes that he can, in fact, elicit concessions from President Trump that might not otherwise be possible if it was just our diplomats talking one on one,” he said on “Face the Nation” on CBS.
But Pompeo on CNN said the sanctions on North Korea would not be lifted until Kim’s regime gets rid of its nuclear arsenal.
“Remember, these sanctions cover a broad array of activities. The core economic sanctions, the sanctions that prevent countries from conducting trade, creating wealth for North Korea, those sections are definitely going to remain in place,” he said on “State of the Union.”
With Post wires