The administration has no choice now but to carry on the pretense that the negotiations are proceeding favorably.
Think of the past few months of President Trump’s Korea policy as a drama, unfolding in multiple acts.
Act I: Trump impulsively agrees to meet North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Perhaps unaware that the North Koreans have sought such a summit meeting for decades, Trump boasts that he has extracted a major concession.
Act II: Trump gradually comes to appreciate that he has been duped. To prove that he’s a winner, not a fool, he begins to oversell the summit, promising that the denuclearization of North Korea is at hand.
Act III: The North Koreans issue a public statement refuting Trump’s boasts. No, they will not denuclearize. And oh, by the way, it’s Trump who must pay tribute to them, not the other way around: If he wants his summit, he should cancel joint U.S.–South Korean exercises.
We’re in Act IV right now—and Act V has yet to be written.
As of midday on May 16, the Trump administration was reacting to the embarrassment of Act III by denying that anything untoward has happened. Throughout his career, Trump has coped with failure by brazenly misrepresenting failure as success.
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Trump was duped and duped again into his Kim summit. He's now faced with a choice of admitting he was punked – or covering his initial error by trying to punk the country. I'm guessing he'll choose the latter. Me in @TheAtlantic today https://t.co/Rj05MGj7MG
— David Frum (@davidfrum) May 17, 2018
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