The White House put conditions Friday on any meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, one day after saying the president had accepted Kim’s invitation for a high-stakes summit.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, “We’re not going to let this meeting take place unless we see concrete actions” by North Korea.
“Let’s be clear: The United States has made zero concessions,” Sanders said.
Asked whether the meeting might not take place “by May” as South Korea’s national security adviser said Thursday, Sanders responded, “We haven’t set a time or a location.”
“We have to see concrete and verifiable actions take place,” Sanders emphasized. “The president will not have the meeting without seeing concrete actions.”
The comments from Sanders are a slight walk back from a White House statement last night that said Trump had “accept[ed] the invitation to meet with Kim Jong Un at a place and time to be determined.”
With her comments Friday, it was clear that North Korea would have to demonstrate more to the United States that it was serious about carrying out its commitments before any meeting would happen.
But Sanders was vague in terms of what the United States would need to see from North Korea, although she did say that the Kim regime had made “promises” on denuclearization, ending nuclear and missile testing and allowing joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises.
In terms of how the United States would verify any progress, Sanders deferred to the national security and intelligence communities.
Asked whether Trump was giving Kim “exactly what he wants” by even agreeing to sit down with him, thereby giving him the prestige of a potential presidential meeting, Sanders disagreed.
“I think that the president is getting exactly what he wants. He is getting the opportunity to have the North Koreans actually denuclearize,” she said, while noting that the U.S.’s campaign of “maximum pressure” will continue until North Korea demonstrates changes in its behavior.
