In an article for The National Interest, Korea Society Senior Director Stephen Noerper writes, “The Hanoi Summit was not the unmitigated disaster many observers termed it. It is step two in a likely long and arduous process that will entail breakoffs, walkaways and other setbacks that accompany denuclearization.”
But many Korea experts welcomed Trump’s decision to walk away. “Better no deal than a bad deal,” said Thomas Byrne, the president of the Korea Society. A deal that would not lead to “full, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization,” one that would have accepted North Korea’s status as a nuclear power, would have weakened America’s alliance with South Korea and Japan and proven destabilizing, he said.
