The two leaders met alone except for their interpreters at a Singapore resort. It was a negotiation unlike any other. Two headstrong men—one 34 years old, the other 71, both products of wealth and privilege, but with lives so dissimilar they were practically from different planets—coming together to search for a deal that eluded their predecessors for decades.
The summit meeting represented a turnaround that would have been inconceivable just a few months ago, when the two leaders had traded insults and threats of a nuclear conflict that rattled the entire world. In the last year alone, Kim has conducted his nation’s most powerful nuclear test and developed missiles capable of striking American cities. Trump responded last August by threatening to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
Then, in January, there was a sudden change in tone. Kim offered to send athletes to the Winter Olympics in South Korea—the first act in a public relations makeover. Just a few months later, Kim invited Trump to meet with him.
South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, who worked intensely to help broker the meeting between Trump and Kim, underlined the summit’s historic nature.
Moon said that the agreement would be just the beginning of what could be a long, bumpy process of ridding North Korea of a nuclear arsenal it has spent decades building.
“Even after the two heads of state open the gate,” Moon said, “it will take a long process to achieve a complete solution. We don’t know how long it will take: one year, two years, or more.”
With reporting by Mark Lander of The New York Times