Keeping Summit Hopes Alive Suggests Kim Jong-un May Need a Deal

South Korean news coverage on a screen in Seoul, the capital. Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has promised his people a prosperous economy, and President Trump’s cancellation of their summit talks put that goal in jeopardy.CreditAhn Young-Joon/Associated Press

Ever since Kim Jong-un took over as the young, untested ruler of North Korea seven years ago, he has promised his country a future free from deprivation.

In his first speech as leader, he vowed that North Koreans, millions of whom starved during a famine in the 1990s, would never again have to tighten their belts. Last year, he apologized to the nation for failing to live up to that pledge, expressing how “anxious and remorseful” it made him.

Then, this year, he proclaimed a new shift to North Korea’s 25 million people: Now that the nation possessed a nuclear arsenal, it could change gears and start building a prosperous economy, after years of international sanctions.

So when President Trump on Thursday abruptly canceled their much anticipated summit meeting on June 12, the North Korean response was remarkably diplomatic and cordial, holding open the hope that the meeting could still take place, after all.

New York Times