Trump to meet Kim in Singapore
Summit with North Korean leader to take place June 12.
President WASHINGTON — Donald Trump announced Thursday that his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will occur June 12 in Singapore, a high-stakes step in his bid to curb the rogue nation’s nuclear weapons program.
Trump made the announcement via Twitter just hours after welcoming home three Americans held captive for more than a year in North Korea.
“The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th,” Trump wrote in his tweet. “We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!”
Trump had floated other possible locations, including the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea, where Kim met last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, which he said held the potential for being a “great celebration.”
But White House aides have been eying Singapore, a tiny island nation of 5.6 million that boasts one of the most advanced economies in Southeast Asia.
Singapore maintains diplomatic relations with North Korea, which has an embassy and ambassador in the country. Singapore’s ambassador based in Beijing also is responsible for Pyongyang.
“Singapore is an ideal location for this summit,” said David Adelman, an attorney at ReedSmith who served as U.S. ambassador to the nation from 2010 to 2013 under former president Barack Obama.
“Really since its founding, Singapore has carefully cultivated a reputation where East meets West,” he said. “They take great pride in being a friend to all. And they’ve done a great job doing so.”
The country has been the site of other high-profile summits. It plays host to an annual regional security conference, called the Shangri-La Dialogue, which usually draws the U.S. defense secretary and top officials from China and other nations. In 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou met in Singapore, the first meeting between the leaders of those two countries in seven years.
The Trump-Kim summit would be the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.
South Korea’s Moon is scheduled to visit the White House on May 22 to debrief Trump on his own meeting with Kim and discuss strategy ahead of Trump’s summit.
Singapore has enjoyed an increasingly close relationship with the United States. In 2012, the Obama administration agreed to upgrade Singapore to a strategic partner, and the countries signed an enhanced security agreement in 2015.
But Singapore also has rigorously sought to maintain good relationships with U.S. rivals, especially China, which has flexed its economic and military muscle as Beijing seeks to expand influence in Southeast Asia.
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founder often cautioned that when two elephants fight in the jungle, the grass gets trampled - meaning that small countries must be careful to ensure they maximize their friendships among larger powers.