From the easing of sanctions to denuclearisation and ending the Korean war, there’s a lot to play for in Hanoi

Donald Trump has said that when he meets Kim Jong-un in Hanoi’s Metropole Hotel on Wednesday evening, the potential for a deal is “awesome”.

Few would argue with that. A move to limit the North Korean arsenal and begin to re-integrate the country back into the international community, would be a significant step away from the brink of nuclear war.

If the past is any guide, Trump will declare the meeting a brilliant triumph whatever happens, especially at a time he knows that any news from Hanoi will be sharing a split-screen with his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, saying devastating things about the president.

Trump’s character, his past eagerness to please despots, and his political difficulties at home have raised alarm that he may give away significant concessions in Vietnam, and thereby surrender US leverage over North Korea.

Trump-Kim Vietnam summit: explosive Cohen allegations look set to overshadow meeting – live Read more

An account of a draft agreement published by Vox has added to those concerns. It suggested that the US would loosen sanctions in return for vague promises to shut down its main plutonium-producing reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which produces plutonium.

According to this account, the specific details about the closure would be delegated to working groups, allowing North Korea to procrastinate as international pressure waned.

The Vox account has not been confirmed and both Trump and Kim are fond of surprises. Trump took to Twitter as he awaited their evening meeting to warn against trying to second guess what he was going to do.

“All false reporting (guessing) on my intentions with respect to North Korea,” Trump wrote. “Kim Jong Un and I will try very hard to work something out on Denuclearization & then making North Korea an Economic Powerhouse.”

The challenge in Hanoi

What will count is whether the Hanoi meeting succeeds in adding substance to the largely rhetorical outcome of the first summit, in Singapore in June. There the two leaders agreed to the “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” but interpreted the phrase in very different ways.

Trump presented it as Kim’s pledge to disarm, while Kim was simply repeating a North Korean catchphrase which refers to a vaguely defined, long term process of multilateral disarmament, during which Pyongyang would be freed of constraints and recognised as a nuclear weapons power.

Trump’s extravagant claims distracted from the positive outcomes from Singapore. North Korea’s moratorium on nuclear and missile testing endured. Facilities have been dismantled at a missile engine test facility and a tunnel demolished a nuclear test site.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump meets with Vietnamese PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc ahead of Kim Jong-un summit Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

Furthermore, a Stanford University assessment concluded that while North Korea was continuing to make fissile material for more bombs, it had slowed down its work on weaponisation – designing and building warheads.

“Our findings indicate that the latter outweighs the former, resulting in an overall decreased threat,” the Stanford authors said.

Meanwhile, the South Korean government has been pursuing its own talks with Kim that have resulted in a significant decrease in tensions, including concrete protocols to reduce the chance of an accident or miscalculation leading to war.

The challenge in Hanoi is much tougher – not just to improve the atmosphere but to put the escalation and nuclear armament of the past decades into reverse. That would involve limiting and beginning to draw down the North Korean arsenal (thought to amount to a few dozen warheads), to agree a way to verify disarmament, and to begin to lift sanctions.

These are some of the elements likely to figure in any Trump-Kim agreement in Hanoi. They will either reflect its substance or be conspicuous by their absence.

The nuclear weapons programme

So far the pause in nuclear and missile testing is voluntary and informal. The US will seek to lock in a no-testing pledge as part of an agreement.

The nuclear complex at Yongbyon will be the most important bargaining chip on the table. Kim has told the South Koreans he was ready to shut down the 5 megawatt reactor there, that is the source of North Korea’s plutonium. It is also its main source of tritium, which is required to build thermonuclear, or ‘hydrogen’ bombs.

The reactor is being in operation more than 30 years old and approaching obsolescence. North Korea would still be able to make nuclear warheads with highly enriched uranium, and it could have a secret reactor elsewhere. But a real and verified disabling and shutdown of the reactor would be a very concrete step in the direction of disarmament.

Yongbyon is also the site of an uranium enrichment plant. Disabling and dismantling it would be another major achievement. The US believe there are other covert plants elsewhere, and will want those to be on the negotiating table too, perhaps at a later stage.

Missiles

The US is seeking limits on the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the continental US, and wants the existing ICBMs dismantled. This would be of limited comfort to US allies in the region who are within shorter range.

Verification

Any arms control agreement does not amount to much without a way of demonstrating that disarmament has taken place.

At a minimum, North Korea is expected to allow outside inspection of the missile and nuclear test sites it has already started dismantling.

Allowing international inspectors, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in particular, back into Yongbyon, would be a much more significant step.

Sanctions

The US has signalled it is ready to relax its insistence that no sanctions will be lifted until North Korea disarms. It has hinted instead at a phased approach by which some restrictions will be lifted in tandem with steps taken by Pyongyang.

The administration’s hands are tied on many US sanctions which are congressionally mandated, but it could persuade the UN security council to relax some international measures, perhaps allowing the expansion of trade and investment between South and North Korea.

US military posture

In Singapore, Trump surprised US allies by announcing a suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea. That may well be extended in return for the North Korean moratorium on testing.

A more significant step would be if Trump announced in Hanoi that he was going to draw down the US troop presence in South Korea. That would ring alarm bells in Congress and in Seoul, particularly if it is done without consulting allies.

Bilateral relations

It is generally expected that the US and North Korea will take a step towards reestablishing diplomatic relations by setting up liaison offices in each other’s capitals.

Expect to see further progress on the repatriation of the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean War.

A more substantial step would be a declaration calling an end to hostilities which dated by to 1950 and the outbreak of the Korean war. It was only suspended three years later with an armistice, but no peace treaty. A declaration that the war was finally over would have enormous symbolic importance for both Koreas.



