President Trump Cancels Summit with Kim Jong-un After Disparaging Remarks About Vice President Are Made

President Trump has completely flipped the script on the Kim regime.  The North Koreans are used to being the ones canceling talks and making the other parties make concessions to get them to come back:

President Donald Trump called off his summit with Kim Jong-un on Thursday after North Korea hurled insults at Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump said it would be ‘inappropriate’ to hold talks at this time after the Kim regime again tested the limits of his patience.

‘You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never be used,’ he said in a letter to Kim that the White House distributed.

North Korea‘s vice foreign minister had slammed Pence for his ‘unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya.’

Choe Son Hui also said the future of the summit between Pyongyang and Washington is ‘entirely’ up to the United States, as she condemned an interview Pence gave to Fox News.

Trump said in his letter to Kim that as a result of the ‘tremendous anger and open hostility’ demonstrated by North Korea in the latest back and forth, he was pulling out of the June 12 meeting to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

‘I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,’ Trump said hours after North Korea publicly destroyed much of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. ‘Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.’

The U.S. president went on to say that he hopes to meet Kim one day and that the good dialogue that was building up between the two nations prior to the recent provocations remains promising.

Trump’s letter to Kim followed a string of threats from the North to call off the summit that had been brokered to discuss a commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The president told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that he’d know whether he was moving forward with the Singapore summit ‘next week.’ That was before North Korea’s latest volley, which included the assault on Pence.

‘We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us,’ said Choe Son Hui, according to a report by North Korea’s central news agency on Thursday.

She added: ‘I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the US vice-president.  [Daily Mail]

You can read more at the link, but here is the letter that President Trump sent to Kim Jong-un:

I look at this as not being a cancellation of the talks, but instead part of the ongoing negotiations.  The Trump administration has put North Korea in its place by reminding them who they are and who they are dealing with; thus the description in the difference in nuclear capabilities in the letter.  I also think the message being sent is that the United States will not be pushed around by the North Koreans and they should be respectful towards the Trump administration and thankful for the opportunity to meet with the US President.  This is especially true considering President Trump has made very respectful remarks towards Kim Jong-un and even the cancellation letter is extremely polite towards Kim Jong-un.

We are about to see how serious the Kim regime is about holding these talks and reaching a denuclearization deal because the ball is now officially in their court.  President Trump’s letter leaves it very open for a future meeting if the Kim regime changes its tone.  If they apologize for the remarks towards Vice President Pence that is a signal that they really do want a deal.  However, if they begin another launch cycle or execute a provocation of some kind then that is a sign they were never serious about these talks in the first place.

However, it was good to see that for once the United States got something out of North Korea, the release  of the three American detainees for little to nothing in return.  It is usually the other way around where the US and South Korea makes concessions to North Korea for little to nothing in return.  Once again President Trump has flipped the script on the Kim regime.  It will be interesting to see how the North Koreans respond.