Saturday, June 2, 2018

The great deal maker

In a lavish show of hospitality, Trump escorted his visitor [North Korean chairman's aide Kim Yong-chol], a former spy chief and general who is under US sanctions, outside the White House for more informal talks and to pose for photographs with the North Korean delegation.

Trump also appeared to accept the North Korean position that its denuclearisation would be a drawn-out process – not the all-in-one surrender of the regime’s nuclear arsenal that Trump officials had previously demanded.

“The big deal will be on June 12,” Trump said. “It’s a process, we’re not [going to] go in and sign something on June 12 and we never were. We are going to start a process. And I told them today: take your time. We can go fast, we can go slowly. I think they’d like to see something happen and if we can work something out that will be good.”

[...]

In his remarks on Friday, Trump said that – although existing sanctions would stay in place – no new measures would be added, ditching the slogan that has defined his policy towards North Korea up to now.

“I don’t want to use the term maximum pressure any more,” Trump said. “We have hundreds of new sanctions ready to go ... but why would I do that when we’re talking so nicely?”

  Guardian
What's the new term?

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