Outside the Beltway

The Trump Administration is falsely claiming that the North Koreans made commitments at the Singapore Summit that they clearly didn’t agree to.

Yet another sign that the Singapore Summit didn’t really accomplish much of anything.

To the surprise of nobody other than, apparently, the President of the United States, the North Koreans are dragging their feet after getting what they wanted out of the Photo Op Summit in Singapore.

Jon Huntsman, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, is rejecting calls that he should resign in the wake of what everyone seems to agree was a disastrous summit meeting with Vladimir Putin.

The Trump Administration is inviting Vladimir Putin to Washington, D.C. for a second summit in the fall. What could possibly go wrong?

More evidence that North Korea isn’t living up to the promises it made in Singapore.

The supposed promises made at the Singapore Summit don’t appear to be working out in the real world.

President Trump is touting his Photo Op Summit as the end of the North Korean nuclear threat. Reality is quite different.

The Singapore Summit meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un was about as substance-less as most analysts anticipated it would be.

With the start of the Singapore Summit just hours away, it’s not at all clear what the respective parties can possibly agree to other than what amounts to a photo opportunity.

A couple weeks ago, the North Koreans made a big deal about destroying their nuclear test site. It now appears that the event the media witnessed was less than meets the eye.

Among the stumbling blocks to a DPRK nuclear summit: who’s going to pay for Kim Jong Un’s hotel room?

Just over a week after he called it off, President Trump announced this afternoon that the June 12th Summit in Singapore was back on.

South Korea’s President is saying that Kim Jong Un has renewed his supposed commitment to ‘denuclearization,’ but it isn’t at all clear what that means.

One day after canceling his summit meeting with Kim Jong Un, President Trump is suggesting it may be back on. Before it happens, though, there ought to be far more adequate preparation.

Seemingly out of the blue, the June 12th summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been canceled by the United States.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a bombastic speech on Iran yesterday that reveals just how empty and dangerous the Trump Administration’s policy toward Iran actually is.

Not surprisingly, the North Koreans are pushing back against American efforts to force them into a corner on denuclearization.

Does the administration know what it is doing?

The date and location of the meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un has been set, but there’s as much chance of failure as their is hope for success.

Some good news from North Korea.

A majority of Americans want the President to stay in the nuclear deal with Iran. That’s unlikely to matter to him.

They hired Israeli Private Investigators to dig up dirt on former Obama officials, including Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl.

The former SecState is engaging in some shadow diplomacy.

Israeli Prime Minister gave a speech yesterday designed to undermine the nuclear deal with Iran. The evidence was unconvincing, but the speech was really only aimed at an audience of one.

The United States is apparently looking to Libya as a guide for upcoming talks with North Korea. The DPRK most likely sees the fate of that nation and its leader as a warning.

There are reasons to be skeptical about the dawning of a new age on the peninsula.

The meeting between Kim Jong-Un and Moon Jae-In was historic, but many questions and caveats remain.

The Kim regime has announced the end, for now, of its nuclear and ballistic missile testing programs. To understand why they made this concession, one needs to read between the lines.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Top positions in the State Department are vacant, and there’s only one person to blame for that.

Out of the blue, President Trump plans to pardon Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, but the move seems to have more to do with James Comey than it does Scooter Libby.

President Trump is talking about pulling American troops out of Syria, but his own White House is contradicting him.

After initially praising the completion of a trade deal with South Korea, President Trump is now suggesting he may withhold final approval contingent on progress on talks with North Korea. This makes no sense whatsoever.

Another significant development on the Korean Peninsula.

After several days of speculation, it was confirmed that the leaders of North Korea and China had met in Beijing. This was meant as much for external consumption as it was the relationship between the two nations.

In selecting John Bolton as his National Security Adviser, Donald Trump has signaled to the world that he’s likely to take action that will only serve to make the world a more dangerous place.

From Europe to the Middle East, to Asia, America’s allies are concerned about what the selection of John Bolton as National Security Adviser means going forward. They should be, and so should every American.

President Trump continues to obsequiously praise Russian President Vladimir Putin

To nobody’s surprise, Vladimir Putin has won re-election to another term as Russia’s President.

The selection of Mike Pompeo as the next Secretary of State makes it more likely that President Trump will take the foolish and dangerous step of withdrawing the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran.

By threatening to withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran, Donald Trump is making it far less likely that any upcoming talks with North Korea will succeed.

North Korea’s Dear Leader has baited the President of the United States into a trap.

The Kim regime released a statement saying they were open to talks and would not conduct provocative tests while they were ongoing.

John Bolton is leading a cry for preemptive war against North Korea.

With the Winter Olympics over, the next step on the Korean Peninsula is utterly unclear.

President Trump continues to make irresponsible and dangerous threats in connection with American policy toward North Korea.

President Trump has announced a new round of sanctions against North Korea, but they are unlikely to work given the unrealistic nature of the Administration’s current policy toward North Korea.

Why does the U.S. continue to pursue the seemingly impossible goal of denuclearization with regard to North Korea? In part, it’s because we’re still locked into thirty-year-old rhetoric.

Expecting North Korea to agree to diplomatic talks that are aimed at getting rid of their nuclear weapons is asking for the impossible, and ensuring there will be no progress on the diplomatic front for the foreseeable future.