President Trump says that he’s envisioning a “very tremendous summit” as he’s expected to sit down once again with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in the hopes of finally delivering on promises toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Mr. Trump made the remarks at a gathering of the nation’s governors at the White House shortly before leaving for Hanoi on Monday.
“I think they’ll have a country that will set a lot of records,” Mr. Trump said in terms of the speed of North Korea’s economic recovery. The president also projected optimism about North Korea’s goals of denuclearization.
During a Sunday evening event with the group of governors, the president said that he’s “not in a rush” on denuclearization, and “as long as there’s no testing, we’re happy.” This comes after the leaders signed a “pretty comprehensive” joint document last June, which laid out commitments for the North to work toward complete and verifiable denuclearization of the region. Intelligence officials claim, however, that the North still poses as a threat to the U.S. and has failed to deliver on making any real efforts toward completely removing nuclear weapons from their stockpile.
Mr. Trump in his Sunday remarks also addressed the ongoing China trade talks, saying he thinks they’ll have big news to announce over the next “week or two.” Earlier, he pushed back a March 1 deadline of imposing tariffs on Chinese imports.
At Monday’s breakfast, Mr. Trump touted the progress of the trade talks and said he would soon be having a “signing ceremony” for the trade agreement.
The president also pressed governors at the meeting on support for his border wall after issuing a national emergency declaration last week. Mr. Trump said construction just started on a 47-mile long patch of wall at the southern border and that there would be more than 200 miles of wall under construction “pretty soon.”
Mr. Trump said “if we have some money left over” they could look at putting walls in geographic locations where perhaps a wall isn’t considered necessary at the moment. He called current wall construction a “work of art.”
The president also repeated his claim that some countries are not sending “their finest” and said they are sending “rough hombres” in some cases.
“You take a look at Tijuana, Mexico, thousands and thousands of people are sitting there trying to get into our country,” Mr. Trump said, noting they would all get in if there wasn’t a newly renovated wall in this area.
CBS News’ Kathryn Watson, Sara Cook and Emily Tillett contributed to this report.
