Unless a Twitter storm intervenes, the “Little Rocket Man” and Donald Trump will meet in the flesh at Santosa Island's 5-star Capella Hotel on June 12. A quarter-mile off the Singapore mainland, the island is appropriately named. In Malay, santosa means “peace and tranquility,” which should be a good omen. But don't fall for heavenly signs; look at the hard-core realities instead. These do not presage a history-transforming grand bargain.
The Trump Administration keeps insisting on North Korea's complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization—and with all due speed. Kim Jong-un naturally wishes to go slow, if he wants to move on his nukes at all, and to pocket plenty of goodies in the process—material as well as symbolic ones.
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