A group of Trump administration officials were given the brushoff by North Korean officials last week after traveling to Singapore to make arrangements for President Trump’s now-canceled summit with Kim Jong Un, the White House revealed Thursday.
Both the U.S. and Pyongyang had agreed to send officials to Singapore to prepare for a meeting between the two leaders, but when Trump administration officials arrived, they were not met by their North Korean counterparts.
“They waited and they waited,” a senior White House official told reporters Thursday afternoon, hours after Trump pulled out of the June 12 summit with Kim. “The North Koreans never showed up. The North Koreans didn’t tell us anything, they just stood us up.”
This official cited a series of other “broken promises” North Korea has failed to implement since Kim requested a meeting with Trump in early March.
“We were told we would be invited to witness and verify today’s demolition” of a nuclear site in Punggye-ri, the official explained. “But that promise was broken. Instead, journalists were invited and we will not have forensic evidence that it was accomplished.”
Trump sent Kim an open letter on Thursday announcing that he would no longer travel to Singapore in June to meet with him, citing the authoritarian regime’s recent provocations and unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. The letter came hours after a high-ranking North Korean official threatened a “nuclear showdown” between the U.S. and Pyongyang, in addition to making incendiary comments about Vice President Mike Pence.
“That was one of several pretty odd judgment calls, to attack the vice president [and] to talk of a nuclear showdown,” the senior White House official said.
Despite Trump’s threat of military action earlier Thursday, the official said he remains open to meeting with Kim down the road and to maintaining an open dialogue with the rogue regime.
“President Trump is willing to pursue diplomacy as far as it can possible be pursued,” the official said, adding that he “wants to see this resolved.”
