Trump-Kim summit Day 1: Nuclear weapons (and Michael Cohen)

Just a few hours before meeting Kim, Trump tweeted that Cohen “did bad things unrelated to Trump,” and “is lying in order to reduce his prison time.”

Tweeting that “I have now spent more time in Vietnam than Da Nang Dick Blumenthal,” Trump added that “his war stories of his heroism in Vietnam were a total fraud – he was never even there. We talked about it today with Vietnamese leaders!”

Trump did not serve in the military during the Vietnam years, claiming college and medical deferments that included bone spurs in his foot.

The tumult back in Washington – lawmakers are also busy with a measure, approved by the Democratic-controlled House, to repeal Trump’s border wall emergency – threaten to overshadow the work in Hanoi.

The president’s domestic troubles only add to the pressure to deliver results with Kim, who has signaled an interest in stronger relations with the United States but declined to dismantle his nuclear program.

In the days leading up to the summit, Trump appeared to lower expectations, claiming he is “in no rush” for denuclearization as long as Pyongyang continues to suspend missile tests.

“We want denuclearization, and I think he’ll have a country that will set a lot of records for speed in terms of an economy,” Trump said before departing for Vietnam.

While Trump is pushing for a detailed North Korean plan for denuclearization, Kim wants the U.S. to first end economic sanctions and provide more help. Trump has previously said he would not ease sanctions without concrete action from Kim.

Hours before the sit-down with the North Korean leader, Trump held largely ceremonial meetings with the leaders of Vietnam, and said their country can be a model for Kim, whom he described as “my friend.”

“Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth. North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize,” Trump tweeted early in the day.

Describing North Korea’s economic potential as “AWESOME,” Trump said it is “a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong Un. We will know fairly soon – Very Interesting!”

Kim, who arrived in Hanoi after a two-and-half-day train ride through China and northern Vietnam, had said nothing publicly about the new talks with Trump.

More than four decades after the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese view the summit as an opportunity to assert themselves on the world diplomatic stage. Heavily promoting the Trump-Kim summit, light poles in Hanoi are festooned with the flags of the U.S., North Korea and Vietnam, mounted on a shield featuring an image of a handshake.

Large posters advertising the summit proclaim Hanoi as “The City For Peace.”

Trump and Kim met  at the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hotel, an Art Nouveau masterpiece that harkens back to French colonial days in Hanoi. Past guests at the hotel have ranged from the comedian Charlie Chaplin to current Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A one-of-a-kind relationship: Trump-Kim summit: From fire and fury to love letters, not your traditional relationship

Among the issues on the Trump-Kim agenda:

What is ‘denuclearization’

Trump and aides have demanded that North Korea identify and destroy facilities used to make nuclear weapons. Kim, however, believes denuclearization should cover the entire region – including U.S. weapons systems designed to protect ally South Korea.

Economic sanctions standoff

Kim says he will not take major steps toward denuclearization until the United States and other countries lift at least some of the sanctions that have crippled North Korea’s economy.

Trump has said sanctions will not be removed until Kim starts to denuclearize, though he has also held out the possibility of other economic assistance.

Follow the money: Trump-Kim summit: Trump hints at rewards for North Korea

Business opportunities: Trump touts North Korea’s economic potential. 

North Korea-U.S. relations

While neither leader is expected to open an embassy in the other’s country, negotiators are discussing “liaison offices” that could be used to improve communications between the two governments.

A formal end to the Korean War

Trump has been open to a treaty to formally end the Korean War, which is technically ongoing even though hostilities were suspended with an armistice in 1953.

Negotiators are working on what aides called a “peace declaration,” a nonbinding political statement to affirm North and South Korea are no longer at war.

The history: How the North and South negotiated a truce in Korean War

Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert with the Fletcher School at Tufts University, said Kim wants to do just enough to satisfy Trump – “like retiring an exhausted nuclear site he no longer needs” – while retaining a weapons programs he depends on for survival.

“Two steps forward and one step back is still progress for North Korea,” he said.

Olivia Enos, a policy analyst with the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, said she hopes Trump and his team tread cautiously. Give too much, she said, and the U.S. will lose its leverage and get little in return.

“The president’s willingness to compromise threatens to undermine the administration’s maximum pressure strategy that brought Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table in the first place,” she said.

Some analysts worry that Trump may be too eager to strike even a bad deal with Kim in order to distract attention from Cohen – who apparently plans to mention the president’s Vietnam trip in his testimony.

In a prepared statement first reported late Tuesday by Politico, Cohen cited the deferments Trump received during the Vietnam War.

“‘You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam,'” Cohen quotes Trump as saying.

In his prepared testimony, Cohen adds: “I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now.”