The president later told reporters he’d halt US-South Korea joint military drills, which stunned both Seoul and Washington.
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His statement follows a report from the New York Times, which criticized the White House for lacking a scientific advisory team.
During a news conference following his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Trump pushed his unconventional approach even further by calling annual US-South Korean military exercises “provocative”.
“It is the case that we are prepared to make security assurances necessary for the North Koreans to engage in that denuclearization”, stated Pompeo.
Wang said in a statement earlier that China welcomed and supported the summit between the U.S. and North Korean leaders and hoped the two countries could reach a basic consensus on achieving denuclearisation.
“To give Kim Jong-un some assurance that we’re willing to meet him more than halfway”.
Trump and Kim signed a “very comprehensive” document after their summit in Singapore.
In a statement, White later said the Pentagon “welcomes the positive news coming out of the summit and fully supports the ongoing, diplomatically led efforts with” North Korea. Trump gave no further details, but previous statements demanded that North Korean effectively eliminate its nuclear program before any US concessions can be considered. Trump, proposed a completely pointless and vain military parade – a certainly expensive endeavor which, unlike military exercises with South Korea, serves no national security or foreign policy objective. Exercises will continue with South Korea.
As TIME has reported, the US made perhaps the most significant concession at the summit by agreeing to stop joint military exercises with South Korea.
Col. Jennifer Lovett, a spokeswoman at the US military command in South Korea, said the command “has received no updated guidance on execution or cessation of training exercises”.
President Trump is right: North Korean leader Kim Jung-un is “very talented”, and Chinese President Xi Jinping is “a very special person”. “By granting a meeting with Chairman Kim, President Trump has granted a brutal and repressive dictatorship the global legitimacy it has long craved”.
Trump added in an interview with ABC News that he had questioned what the exercises cost, noting that “we’re flying planes in from Guam, we’re bombing empty mountains for practice”.
Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), who has spent a significant time living and working in East Asia, told a group of defense reporters at a breakfast roundtable Tuesday morning that he was “surprised” and “troubled” by the announcement. Under the circumstances we are negotiating a complete deal”, Trump said, adding “It is inappropriate to have war games.
Ingraham, who has often chastised the left and mainstream media for its coverage of Trump, invoked recent comments by HBO host Bill Maher and his hope for an economic recession if it meant getting rid of the Republican commander in chief.
“They’ve got a long history of double dealing”, Hoffman said.
The U.S. and North Korea have already agreed, in some form, to each of the points listed in the joint statement.
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THE FACTS: He’s overstating the number of missing service personnel and glossing over the surely impossible odds of locating the remains of “all of the people” more than six decades after the Korean War. Interestingly, South Korea now says it wants “clarity” on the end to the war games. They think even if the economy is opened up, foreign investors are likely to be very cautious as they remember previous financial ventures in North Korea.
