Trump Calls Off North Korea Summit with Vile Letter

This was always going to happen. It was inconceivable that Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un were ever going to actually sit down together and try to negotiate some kind of detente. Not when, as I noted last week: "Kim wants Trump to keep demanding denuclearization, so he can have an excuse to walk away from the summit. Trump wants Kim to walk away from the summit, so he can have an excuse for war."

Both of them had too much invested in the collapse of this plan to believe the summit would ever happen.

So here we are. And after Kim apparently made some new statement, which was so typical in whatever extreme rhetoric it contained that I hadn't heard about it and can't even find reporting on it, Donald Trump used that as the ostensible excuse for calling the whole thing off, with an absolutely obscene letter, in which he issues a thinly veiled threat of nuclear war and mocks Kim for having released U.S. hostages, under the guise of thanking him.

His Excellency
Kim Jong Un
Chairman of the State Affairs Commission
of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Pyongyang

Dear Mr. Chairman:

We greatly appreciate your time, patience, and effort with respect to our recent negotiations and discussions relative to a summit long sought by both parties, which was scheduled to take place on June 12 in Singapore. We were informed that the meeting was requested by North Korea, but that to us is totally irrelevant. I was very much looking forward to being there with you. Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. 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. You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.

I felt a wonderful dialogue was building up between you and me, and ultimately, it is only that dialogue that matters. Some day, I look very much forward to meeting you. In the meantime, I want to thank you for the release of the hostages who are now home with their families. That was a beautiful gesture and was very much appreciated.

If you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please do not hesitate to call me or write. The world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth. This missed opportunity is a truly sad moment in history.

Sincerely yours,
Donald Trump

This is not a "win" for the United States. It's not even a "win" for Donald Trump personally, even by his own execrable, vainglorious standards. It is, instead, a massive propaganda victory for Kim, who can now point to this reversal, and this letter, as evidence of our malintent.

And now that Trump has openly ridiculed Kim for releasing U.S. hostages, how likely do you think it is that Kim will ever release U.S. hostages again?

This is a shitshow. An entirely predictable one.

So much for that commemorative coin. I guess the Nobel Prize will have to wait, too.