A Bettor’s Guide to the Trump-Kim Summit

On Monday night at 9 p.m. Eastern—9 a.m. Tuesday morning in Singapore—Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will finally meet face to face. The daily swirl of insults and compliments as these two adversaries circle each other before the summit is dizzying. If this were a heavyweight boxing match, we’d need a bettor’s guide before wagering on the outcome.

1. The contenders: In the left corner is “Little Rocket Man” from Pyongyang. Thirty four years old, in his seventh year in office, he inherited his position as a virtual demigod from his father and grandfather. But his combination of wiliness and ruthlessness has surprised everyone. When he becomes suspicious about the loyalty of those around him, including his uncle and half-brother, he kills them. Just this week, he dismissed his minister of defense, chief of staff of the army, and the leading political officer in the army—replacing them with personal loyalists.

In the right corner wearing red, white, and blue trunks is The Donald. A leader who defeated 16 Republican competitors to win his party’s nomination and then defied predictions that he could never defeat Hillary Clinton, he became the leader of the free world by breaking all the rules. Flouting expertise, protocol and conventional wisdom at every turn, the man who wrote “The Art of the Deal” is primed for this fight.

2. The stakes: Though North Korea is one of the most isolated, impoverished nations on Earth, the U.S. intelligence community ranks Kim’s regime among the gravest dangers to American national security. North Korea is one of only a handful of adversaries that could make New York City, Washington or Los Angeles disappear, either by selling a nuclear weapon to terrorists or launching it on the ICBM that it tested in November 2017.

An agreement that eliminates North Korea’s nuclear arsenal would be unprecedented. (Forget what you’ve heard about Libya. Only one country, South Africa, ever actually developed nuclear weapons and then eliminated them.) But even an agreement that phases out North Korea’s nukes and halts further testing would be a big plus for American national security.

Kim appears to believe his legitimacy depends on fulfilling two promises he made to his countrymen: nuclear weapons to safeguard the nation from attack (particularly by the United States) and economic prosperity. After forcing his already destitute citizens to endure further austerity in the name of national security, Kim has declared victory on the nuclear program and pivoted to economic development. But he knows that such development depends on relief from U.S.-led international sanctions, which in turn will require him to make concessions on the nuclear front.

3. Recent history: Just two days after winning the election, President-elect Trump met President Obama. At that meeting, Obama reportedly told Trump that the North Korea challenge would define his presidency—since Kim stood on the threshold of a capability to launch nuclear weapons against the American homeland.

Trump later tweeted: “It won’t happen!” And from that day to this, he has demonstrated a consistent determination to prevent Pyongyang from crossing that red line. As Kim moved closer to that goal by testing three ICBMs in 2017, Trump threatened Kim with “fire and fury.” And he squeezed Kim with tighter and tighter sanctions, using his own mixture of threats and promises to persuade China, North Korea’s primary trading partner, to clamp down.

4. Earlier history: American policymakers typically deal with challenges by taking a snapshot of current events. More thoughtful statesmen review the main scenes in the movie that led to this point.

The North Korean nuclear odyssey is a long, twisted tale. But it is useful to recall that we have seen this movie before. Over the past two decades North Korea has on multiple occasions agreed to the “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula”; American diplomats have previously declared mission accomplished; and North Korea has suspended its missile and nuclear advance for a season. So while a deal that freezes North Korea’s advance would be better than the feasible alternatives, we should remember the pitfalls. North Koreans have previously made—and broken—promises precisely like the ones they will likely make this time around.

5. Possible outcomes: There are three. First, if Kim refuses to make any kind of commitment toward denuclearization, Trump walks. Trump threatened that earlier. That is not going to happen. The weakest version of the draft joint statement that the Pompeo-led team has already extracted from its North Korean partners will be good enough for Trump and Kim to declare victory.

At the other end of the spectrum would be an operational agreement for Complete Verifiable Irreversible Denuclearization (CVID). That would mean a detailed schedule over the year ahead for American teams taking all nuclear weapons and materials out of North Korea and inspecting all suspicious sites for hidden material. Two months ago, a group of hawkish Washington experts were placing bets on this outcome—including bets with me. In the past week, several have emailed seeking to cover their bets at a lower payoff since they now recognize that this, too, is not going to happen. The complexity of the project makes that hope unrealistic.

In between these two extremes is the most likely outcome: Trump and Kim sign a communique that outlines broad shared principles, and they instruct their subordinates to hammer out details to be signed at a subsequent summit. Trump signaled flexibility on this front after his meeting last week with Kim Jong Un’s envoy, Kim Yong Chol, when he said, “This is a process. We’re not going to sign something on June 12th. We never were. I told him, ‘Take your time. We can go fast. We can go slow.’”

6. My bet: As I wrote in April, Trump and Kim will jointly announce a “big win.” They will say that they have agreed to a framework to verifiably denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, establish a peace regime in which the parties vow to respect each other’s sovereignty and security, and move toward normalization of relations and a peace treaty ending the Korean War.

They will direct their subordinates to develop specific plans to implement these general principles and will agree to meet again in several months. Who knows? Trump might even invite Kim to Mar-a-Lago and offer him a chance to see Disney World.

The two will also likely announce plans for a three-party summit with South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in and follow up discussions between the two Koreas in consultation with the U.S. and China about a treaty (not just an armistice) to formally end the Korean War. That should be followed by a six-party summit that would also include Japan and Russia.

While negotiations are ongoing, North Korea would halt further missile and nuclear tests, and the U.S. would agree not to further tighten sanctions and allow South Korea to offer humanitarian aid. If a feasible way can be found for North Korea to verifiably freeze fissile material production and further reduce its existing stockpile, the U.S. and South Korea would offer sanctions relief and economic assistance.

A careful reader of the communications between Trump and Kim cannot escape the sense that they have a certain rapport. Each thinks he understands the other—Kim cleverly sent Trump a comically oversized, camera-ready letter, for instance. Both imagine that they are going to establish a beautiful relationship. But we also know that both men clearly enjoy surprising others. That’s why, ahead of Tuesday’s main event, even the most confident bettors are hedging their bets.