President Donald Trump seems determined to address the North Korean nuclear crisis mano a mano when he sits down with the country’s leader next week.
The rest of the world has other ideas. As Trump prepares to meet with Kim Jong Un on June 12, a growing list of foreign leaders is trying to influence the results.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin recently sent his top envoy to see Kim in Pyongyang and has invited the North Korean to visit Russia soon. South Korea’s president has floated the idea of joining the summit. Japan’s prime minister is rushing to the White House later this week to give Trump last-minute advice.
And for reasons no one fully understands, Syria’s ruthless dictator, Bashar Assad, is reported to be planning a visit to Pyongyang.
The global jockeying may greatly complicate Trump’s plans for dealing with Kim, analysts warned. Some nations will want to shape any nuclear agreement, while others could seek to undermine a resulting deal.
“Everyone wants to see their agenda reflected … no one wants to be the odd man out,” said Suzanne DiMaggio, a senior fellow with New America. “I’m not sure the administration has their eye on the ball on this.”
Trump views himself as a master negotiator and often ignores his aides' advice. When asked last fall about unfilled U.S. diplomatic posts, Trump told Fox News: “I’m the only one that matters.”
In addition to his "America first" philosophy and general disdain for multilateralism, Trump appears to be approaching North Korea as a two-man negotiation between himself and Kim. When George W. Bush sought to engage North Korea in the 2000s, by contrast, he joined a formal group of four other nations for the so-called six-party talks. Trump has shown no interest in reviving that approach.
But some countries feel they have little choice but to keep trying to engage the U.S. president.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is planning to visit Washington on Thursday amid growing alarm in Tokyo that Japan has been sidelined in Trump’s diplomacy with Kim.
Trump's recent softening of his rhetoric toward North Korea — including his suggestion last week that he doesn't want to use the phrase "maximum pressure" to refer to the U.S.-led sanctions campaign against Pyongyang — has Japanese officials worried that North Korea might win an easing of economic sanctions without making genuine concessions.
Abe is particularly worried that Trump might strike a deal with Kim that allows him to keep short- and mid-range missiles capable of striking Japan, which North Korea has openly threatened for years. He has also implored Trump to raise the fate of several Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.
“There's a big sense of unease, and that explains why the prime minister is coming here," said Mireya Solis, a Japan specialist with the Brookings Institution. Abe wants to "convey to President Trump that the set of core security interests should not be neglected."
Abe has even considered his own one-on-one summit with Kim, according to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun.
As Abe makes his views crystal clear, the White House is trying to understand what several other countries are up to.
One of them is China. Chinese President Xi Jinping has met with Kim twice since plans for the summit were announced on March 8. The initial gathering with Xi was Kim’s first known meeting with a fellow head of state.
Last month, Trump complained that Kim’s regime seemed to grow more belligerent following the North Korean’s second visit to Beijing, which Trump said took place "all of a sudden out of nowhere." "[I]t could very well be that [Xi is] influencing Kim Jong Un," Trump warned.
Xi has backed the Trump-Kim dialogue but may see his influence over Kim as a bargaining chip in tough trade negotiations with Washington.
Maybe more ominous are the opaque intentions of Putin. After asserting little role in the U.S.-North Korean dialogue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov showed up in Pyongyang late last month with “warmest regards” from his boss — and an invitation for Kim to visit Russia for an economic forum in September.
Citing U.S. “hegemonism,” Kim told Lavrov he was “willing to exchange detailed and in-depth opinions with your leadership and hope to do so moving forward,” according to The Associated Press.
Lavrov's trip fits a pattern of Moscow trying to insert itself wherever the U.S. is taking the lead. And Russia, which endures stiff U.S. and European sanctions of its own, is always looking for promising new markets.
“Russia would love to play the spoiler, of course," said Daniel Blumenthal of the American Enterprise Institute. "They're trying to scramble to get back in the game ever since we announced the bilateral summit. I'm sure they would love to supply the North Koreans with oil and weapons and everything else the Russians supply bad actors in the world."
Perhaps the most unexpected player to emerge is Syria's Assad.
North Korean state media reported over the weekend that Assad recently said he will visit Kim. It’s not clear when Assad would visit or even how concrete the plan is. But the announcement suggested Pyongyang is eager to tout its alliances, even at the risk of angering Washington.
Trump has ordered two military strikes against Assad’s forces to punish their use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war. Assad and his father, who ruled Syria before him, have long cultivated friendly ties with North Korea, which has allegedly provided Syria with Scud missiles and is believed to have aided Syria’s construction of a nuclear reactor. (Israel bombed the site in 2007 before the reactor could go online.)
Trump has not commented on reports of a possible Assad-Kim meetup, but they have led to head scratching in Washington.
"I’m sorry, but this is weird," said Robert Gallucci, a former U.S. official who negotiated with the North Koreans during the Clinton administration. Gallucci spoke at the Stimson Center on Monday on a panel alongside DiMaggio.
Trump is likely grateful for the role of one other country involved in his North Korea diplomacy: South Korea.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has been a key driver behind the Trump-Kim summit from the start. It was Moon’s deputies who, during a White House visit, relayed the offer from Kim to meet that Trump quickly accepted. Moon has also helped to build momentum and trust through his direct outreach to Kim, including a dramatic face-to-face meeting with the North Korean leader in late April that included a pledge from Kim to pursue “denuclearization.”
And after Trump canceled the summit following a war of words between his aides and Pyongyang, Moon helped to salvage the plan by meeting Kim again to offer reassurances. Moon has also floated a three-way session with Trump and Kim following the Singapore summit, although U.S. officials have yet to agree to that idea. South Korean and U.S. officials are discussing the post-June 12 diplomatic schedule, which is expected to include a visit by Japan’s foreign minister to Seoul, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment, but Trump aides have long said they are in constant contact with allies ahead of the summit.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that one reason North Korea wants to talk to the United States is because the Trump administration had — contrary to beliefs about its alliance-building skills — successfully rallied other countries to implement economic sanctions on Pyongyang while reducing diplomatic contacts.
Even China and Russia, both frequent foes of the United States on the U.N. Security Council, approved additional sanctions — part of what the Trump administration calls its "maximum pressure" campaign.
An open question is whether North Korea wants to drag out talks with the U.S. long enough to where the economic pressure campaign is all but gone without Pyongyang having taken serious steps to scuttle its nuclear program.
"Trump may be keeping the channels to the most narrow for the moment at least until after June 12," said Soo Kim, a former CIA North Korea analyst. "From Trump's perspective, getting other countries involved at this point might just 'get in the way' of making progress.”
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