After Raising the Stakes for North Korea Summit, Trump Walks Away
It seemed history was about to be made. Then the second meeting between the U.S. and North Korean leaders concluded abruptly.
Updated at 4:05 p.m. ET on February 28, 2019.
The expectations were enormous: Perhaps Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un would, at a summit in Vietnam, finally declare an end to the Korean War, establish liaison offices in each other’s capitals, and trade the destruction of North Korea’s main nuclear facility for the easing of some sanctions against Pyongyang. There was a palpable sense that history was about to be made.
Instead, the second meeting between the two leaders ended in failure on Thursday, with a table set for a leaders’ lunch abandoned, a signing ceremony scrapped, and a terse statement from the White House press secretary: “No agreement was reached at this time.”
In a pushed forward by a couple of
