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 server 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 our 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,
The White House is the seat of the Executive Branch of the United States government.
Really? This is the unfunniest joke ever.
What 5-year-old did they hire to write this?
I would bet you anything that Trump dictated the letter to some poor soul who had to type it up for him.
It’s too long for him to have written it, but it contains too much of his bizzare phrasing to not come from him.
"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 mean.. come the fuck on. How can you refer to the goal of everlasting peace in one sentence yet brag about the size of your nuclear arsenal in another? I reads like a diplomatic Mad Lib.
"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 mean.. come the fuck on. How can you refer to the goal of everlasting peace in one sentence yet brag about the size of your nuclear arsenal in another? I reads like a diplomatic Mad Lib.
It’s extra maddening because that whole line seems to exude a subtext of “oh god, please give us a reason to use them”
Twice in a row now, twice in a row, this admin has done something stupid on my bi-weekly work trip to a small deep Western town.
Last time I got to listen to endless repetitions of how of course the Iran Deal was bad, because Obama is a Muslim so he gave Iran everything! And also the Bible says whoever attacks Israel will face internal strife!
Now I'm going to have to listen to people talking about how Trump is finally playing tough with North Korea like so many past Presidents never would, and finally we have someone in office who plays tough with them!
And I'm going to have to bite the hell out of my served on the DMZ and minored in Asian Studies tongue because these idiots write my paycheck.
Trump cancels summit over comments made against pence as pence defended trumps stupid comments on the Libya model
Yeah this is a win for North korea
I don't think this is a win for North Korea. I don't think they lost either. They kept the status quo.
Trump did lose here. A good lesson in why the previous administrations never attempted something like this. Very small chance that's things do go right.
But perhaps the biggest loser is the South Korean Government. What can they do now? It increasingly looks like they disagree with the US about how to approach North Korea, and if a war is started they will pay a much heavier cost than the US. Can they maintain their own diplomatic efforts with the North, are has their foregin policy concerns in this one particular case been overruled but their ally?
Man, the US is losing a lot of trust overseas, isn't it.
Trump cancels summit over comments made against pence as pence defended trumps stupid comments on the Libya model
Yeah this is a win for North korea
I don't think this is a win for North Korea. I don't think they lost either. They kept the status quo.
Trump did lose here. A good lesson in why the previous administrations never attempted something like this. Very small chance that's things do go right.
But perhaps the biggest loser is the South Korean Government. What can they do now? It increasingly looks like they disagree with the US about how to approach North Korea, and if a war is started they will pay a much heavier cost than the US. Can they maintain their own diplomatic efforts with the North, are has their foregin policy concerns in this one particular case been overruled but their ally?
Man, the US is losing a lot of trust overseas, isn't it.
That's why this is a win for North Korea: now, South Korea has another reason to avoid working with the US. Which means that they have to work with China, and that North Korea is now in a much stronger position, since the Chinese government is not especially hostile to North Korea.
NK wins.
USA should be a loser but domestically no one will care. The media will forget by next week.
SK is the biggest loser, due to being forced into this charade and having it fall through. Maybe they can continue the dialogue and something good will happen, but I doubt it.
Trump cancels summit over comments made against pence as pence defended trumps stupid comments on the Libya model
Yeah this is a win for North korea
I don't think this is a win for North Korea. I don't think they lost either. They kept the status quo.
Trump did lose here. A good lesson in why the previous administrations never attempted something like this. Very small chance that's things do go right.
But perhaps the biggest loser is the South Korean Government. What can they do now? It increasingly looks like they disagree with the US about how to approach North Korea, and if a war is started they will pay a much heavier cost than the US. Can they maintain their own diplomatic efforts with the North, are has their foregin policy concerns in this one particular case been overruled but their ally?
Man, the US is losing a lot of trust overseas, isn't it.
That's why this is a win for North Korea: now, South Korea has another reason to avoid working with the US. Which means that they have to work with China, and that North Korea is now in a much stronger position, since the Chinese government is not especially hostile to North Korea.
Yup, winners are (and have been since the instant Trump came to power) China. They will now collaborate with south Korea on a summit with the north, and create a peace on 'Asian terms' which will exclude Japan and the US from negotiations.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
edited May 2018
I look forward to the many mea culpas about how it turns out diplomacy isn’t magically easier for those who understand the thug mentality
J/k, we’re actually going to get a few weeks of “Why won’t Democrats give him credit for the hostages?”
Part of me suspected that Un was going to cancel anyway and Trump wanted to get ahead of it to look like he was the one really calling the shots.
But holy shit, that's just pathetic.
Un wanted the photo op. It shows an equalization and respect on the world stage. A thing the Kim regime has pushed for years.
Trump pulling out is because the White House realized the only real win on this was an announcement plus months to years of negotiations. And that ain't his style.
Trump cancels summit over comments made against pence as pence defended trumps stupid comments on the Libya model
Yeah this is a win for North korea
It honestly would have been better if they hadn’t planned this summit in the first place
Now North Korea gets to have the moral high ground, which is... bad
Eh. It's not really that bad. It mostly just makes Trump and his people look like fools.
Which is extra funny cause they spent so much time talking up his huge accomplishment of getting the summit that now they have to eat even more shit for killing it.
I had difficulty interpreting that Axios tweet because trying to make this somehow positive requires a very different view of how the universe is ordered.
He "milked" his adversary for [???] and gave them "nothing" [except what they wanted].
Edit: I guess that is true, they didn't specifically get a photo-op. That's something they wanted and didn't get yet.
Oh right and the hostages is an obvious good. But also the sort of good that like, North Korea has done that before in exchange for less.
A concession that cost North Korea nothing and made them look like magnanimous, trustworthy diplomats to the rest of the world
The US made statements tantamount to “let’s bilk North Korea, strip them of their nuclear progress and then kill their leader after humiliating him” and they went “hey that’s not nice” and we responded with “FINE WE WILL TAKE OUR BALL AND GO HOME, DON’T FORGET ABOUT OUR VERY POWERFUL AND SENSUAL NUKES MMPF MMPF”
It’s fucking embarrassing and it will have diplomatic consequences for the US for the foreseeable future because we can’t be depended upon to not be fucking children on the world stage
Meanwhile North Korea came out of this looking very reasonable, which, if that was Trump’s goal all along then aces bruh!
I am the opposite of what could be considered a foreign policy/diplomacy expert and even I can see how this behavior is going to have both short and long-term consequences for the US
This isn’t happening in a vacuum, Trump is going to cause every rational actor on the world stage to hesitate before shaking hands with Americans
again, they don't need the nuclear test site. we don't conduct nuclear tests anymore either, because we already have a functional nuclear capability. So do they.
I have read the Axios tweet several times now and I find no way to interpret it as anything other than critical of Trump. Am I missing something.
It's going to depend on your political leanings. To US conservatives, a US leader lying to a foreign power, getting concessions, then backing out from their own, is the correct thing to do. You got more out of the exchange than they did, so you 'win'.
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HonkHonk is this poster.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Is it like one of those drawings that is either a vase or two faces.
Posts
God you can just hear him turning himself on with that
I would bet you anything that Trump dictated the letter to some poor soul who had to type it up for him.
It’s too long for him to have written it, but it contains too much of his bizzare phrasing to not come from him.
Really?
I wrote letters better than this, to the white house, in 8th grade.
I mean.. come the fuck on. How can you refer to the goal of everlasting peace in one sentence yet brag about the size of your nuclear arsenal in another? I reads like a diplomatic Mad Lib.
It is on sale right now.
https://www.whitehousegiftshop.com/product-p/summitcoin.htm
Red teacher pen - So is this sentence.
It’s extra maddening because that whole line seems to exude a subtext of “oh god, please give us a reason to use them”
Yeah this is a win for North korea
It honestly would have been better if they hadn’t planned this summit in the first place
Now North Korea gets to have the moral high ground, which is... bad
Last time I got to listen to endless repetitions of how of course the Iran Deal was bad, because Obama is a Muslim so he gave Iran everything! And also the Bible says whoever attacks Israel will face internal strife!
Now I'm going to have to listen to people talking about how Trump is finally playing tough with North Korea like so many past Presidents never would, and finally we have someone in office who plays tough with them!
And I'm going to have to bite the hell out of my served on the DMZ and minored in Asian Studies tongue because these idiots write my paycheck.
FML
Who else would it be a win for? Trump? He has no fucking idea what he's doing and any win he would ever get would be him blundering blindly into it
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I don't think this is a win for North Korea. I don't think they lost either. They kept the status quo.
Trump did lose here. A good lesson in why the previous administrations never attempted something like this. Very small chance that's things do go right.
But perhaps the biggest loser is the South Korean Government. What can they do now? It increasingly looks like they disagree with the US about how to approach North Korea, and if a war is started they will pay a much heavier cost than the US. Can they maintain their own diplomatic efforts with the North, are has their foregin policy concerns in this one particular case been overruled but their ally?
Man, the US is losing a lot of trust overseas, isn't it.
That's why this is a win for North Korea: now, South Korea has another reason to avoid working with the US. Which means that they have to work with China, and that North Korea is now in a much stronger position, since the Chinese government is not especially hostile to North Korea.
USA should be a loser but domestically no one will care. The media will forget by next week.
SK is the biggest loser, due to being forced into this charade and having it fall through. Maybe they can continue the dialogue and something good will happen, but I doubt it.
The world keeps on turning.
Yup, winners are (and have been since the instant Trump came to power) China. They will now collaborate with south Korea on a summit with the north, and create a peace on 'Asian terms' which will exclude Japan and the US from negotiations.
J/k, we’re actually going to get a few weeks of “Why won’t Democrats give him credit for the hostages?”
Edit: Omg
Apparently this was a win!
But holy shit, that's just pathetic.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Un wanted the photo op. It shows an equalization and respect on the world stage. A thing the Kim regime has pushed for years.
Trump pulling out is because the White House realized the only real win on this was an announcement plus months to years of negotiations. And that ain't his style.
Eh. It's not really that bad. It mostly just makes Trump and his people look like fools.
Which is extra funny cause they spent so much time talking up his huge accomplishment of getting the summit that now they have to eat even more shit for killing it.
He "milked" his adversary for [???] and gave them "nothing" [except what they wanted].
Edit: I guess that is true, they didn't specifically get a photo-op. That's something they wanted and didn't get yet.
Oh right and the hostages is an obvious good. But also the sort of good that like, North Korea has done that before in exchange for less.
A concession that cost North Korea nothing and made them look like magnanimous, trustworthy diplomats to the rest of the world
The US made statements tantamount to “let’s bilk North Korea, strip them of their nuclear progress and then kill their leader after humiliating him” and they went “hey that’s not nice” and we responded with “FINE WE WILL TAKE OUR BALL AND GO HOME, DON’T FORGET ABOUT OUR VERY POWERFUL AND SENSUAL NUKES MMPF MMPF”
It’s fucking embarrassing and it will have diplomatic consequences for the US for the foreseeable future because we can’t be depended upon to not be fucking children on the world stage
Meanwhile North Korea came out of this looking very reasonable, which, if that was Trump’s goal all along then aces bruh!
This isn’t happening in a vacuum, Trump is going to cause every rational actor on the world stage to hesitate before shaking hands with Americans
NBC:
CNN reporter:
So did they inform NK and SK about this early or did they go the silly route?
Trump reading the letter was informing the world we including NK, SK, and China we were pulling out.
Remember this is governance by reality TV.
They definitely didn't tell anyone beforehand. I would put money on this being a surprise to everyone.
Reuters is a wire service
It's going to depend on your political leanings. To US conservatives, a US leader lying to a foreign power, getting concessions, then backing out from their own, is the correct thing to do. You got more out of the exchange than they did, so you 'win'.
CBS is a news service
I wonder if he will take questions.