Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un sign the blandest of agreements
All the details are left to underlings to sort out
“WE HAD a really fantastic meeting. A lot of progress. Really, very positive, I think better than anybody could have expected, top of the line, really good.” So said Donald Trump after his first meeting with Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s blood-drenched dictator, in Singapore on June 12th. Alas, a short while later North-Korea watchers realised that, as so often with Mr Trump, the rhetoric didn’t quite match the reality. The most substantial thing to come out of the summit may well have been the dark chocolate tart served at the “working lunch” which Mr Trump and Mr Kim held with their delegations after meeting face to face.
Where new talks between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un might go
A crisis is more likely than a genuine breakthrough
Japan faces a reckoning over rice
A crisis over its staple reveals cracks in the country’s food system
South Korea’s democracy has passed one big test
But it faces several more
Xi Jinping may try to woo the victims of Donald Trump’s tariffs
America’s chaos is a chance for China to wield influence in the region
Trump’s tariffs will pummel Vietnam
Though there are a few silver linings
Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s disgraced president, is ousted
Democratic institutions have held firm, but the political mess will go on