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How Kim Snookered Trump in Singapore
 Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are headed home from Singapore after their historic summit, and my column notes that it sure looks as if Trump has been snookered. Please read! |
| Trump made significant concessions — especially the cancellation of military exercises — and seems to have won virtually nothing in return. Kim reaffirmed the commitment to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, but it’s a commitment that North Korea has been making regularly since 1992. |
| Moreover, it was just weird to see Trump — fresh from savaging Justin Trudeau — lavishing praise on the leader of the most totalitarian country in the world. “He’s smart, loves his people,” Trump said of Kim. Astonishingly, Trump even said that his message to North Koreans was that Kim “has a great feeling for them” and “wants to do right by them.” I’ve been covering North Korea since the 1980s, and I can’t tell you how odd it was to hear an American president sound like a spokesman for a North Korean dictator, even repeating the standard North Korean propaganda line that U.S. military exercises are “provocative.” Read the full column. |
| In other news, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen may be about to get far worse. The United Nations has said that Yemen already constitutes the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, after a Saudi-U.A.E. coalition backed by the United States organized a blockade that has resulted in hunger and disease. Now the coalition is poised to seize the major port through which supplies arrive. I’ve been trying for two years to get to the area, but Saudi Arabia won’t let me through its blockade — because it doesn’t want reporters covering the cholera and starvation it is causing. |
| After the Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain suicides, it was encouraging to see the emphasis on the larger public health problem of rising suicide rates and on the national suicide hotline (800-273-8255). My former colleague Joe Nocera weighs in here with a brave, powerful and deeply personal story of his own depression and how it affected his work at The Times. These stories are important for they help break down the stigma that accompanies mental health problems. I’ve always felt that the areas that we in journalism cover the worst, and those that government is worst at developing policies toward, are those that are hard to talk about: sex, mental illness, domestic violence, drug abuse, alcoholism, and so on. Talking openly about these issues, and putting a human face on them, is an important start. |
| And, sigh, here’s my column on how Trump was snookered in Singapore. I welcome your comments below the column. |
