When U.S. President Donald Trump meets again with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month, he will be staging the second act in a comedy of manners that now passes for U.S. foreign policy on the Korean Peninsula. Between Kim's billets-doux to the White House and Trump's gushing praise of Kim, the script could have been written by Oscar Wilde. Like any drawing-room farce, the plot is simple enough: Kim will pledge to abandon his nuclear weapons someday, while coquettishly concealing any details about the program that produces them, and Trump will promise to shower wealth on the Kim dynasty if he does.
But, of course, this play is more tragedy than comedy. Like Trump's threats to abandon long-standing alliances, withdraw U.S. forces from strategically important regions and tear up trade deals, the prospect of more presidential shooting from the hip is unnerving U.S. allies, soldiers, diplomats and even some politicians.
There is good reason to worry, given the outcome of the two leaders' summit in Singapore last June. Trump's naive acceptance of Kim's empty promises over the past eight months has only served to erode U.S. leverage in South Korea and beyond. The North has continued to pursue its ballistic missile program; and through his overtures to South Korea and China, Kim has succeeded in weakening sanctions on his regime.