Ashish Kumar Sen

In the wake of US President Donald J. Trump’s June 12 summit with North Korean leader  Kim Jong-un, R. Nicholas Burns, an Atlantic Council board member who served as US undersecretary of state from 2005 to 2008, discussed the tough work that lies ahead and lessons from a not too distant past.

US President Donald J. Trump’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12 is a diplomatic win for the United States, but whether it is a strategic victory will depend on the implementation of the joint agreement signed by the two leaders, according to Michael Morell, an Atlantic Council board member and former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Even if US President Donald J. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un fail to achieve a breakthrough in their highly-anticipated summit in Singapore on June 12—Trump administration officials have been privately ratcheting down expectations—the summit in and of itself will be historic. It will be the first time that a sitting US president has met the leader of North Korea. The meeting provides an important opportunity to make headway on a protracted nonproliferation challenge.

Cracks in the United States’ relationships with some of its closest friends and allies were on full display at a meeting of the world’s largest economies in Canada this week. The fissures have been caused by US President Donald J. Trump’s America First approach that has led to the US withdrawal from two multilateral agreements—the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement—and imposition of metal tariffs on the European Union (EU), Mexico, and Canada on the pretext of protecting US national security.

Russia is attempting to influence the midterm elections in the United States in November as well as divide the transatlantic alliance, US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned at a meeting co-hosted by the Atlantic Council in Normandy, France, on June 8.

US President Donald J. Trump’s suggestion that Russia be invited back to a grouping of the world’s largest economies is likely to deepen divisions with allies already irked by the president’s policies. Trump on June 8 called for Russia to be reinstated into the G7 from which it was expelled following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

US President Donald J. Trump said on June 1 that his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will proceed as initially planned in Singapore on June 12. Trump’s announcement followed his meeting at the White House with Gen. Kim Yong-chol, the vice-chairman of North Korea’s Workers’ Party’s Central Committee. Kim is the first North Korean official to visit the White House in eighteen years.