Trump fails to win North Korea nukes deal

The talks between North Korea and the US that took place in Vietnam collapsed last week.

Dr Matthew Partridge
By
published
in Features

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Trump and Kim: at loggerheads

The talks between North Korea and the US that took place in Vietnam, aimed at getting the communist regime to give up its nuclear weapons, collapsed last week, reports The New York Times. North Korea rejected President Trump's offer to "go big" and "trade all its nuclear weapons, material and facilities for an end to the American-led sanctions squeezing its economy".

For its part, the US rejected a counter-offer from North Korea to dismantle one part of its nuclear programme in exchange for an end to the "most damaging" sanctions.

That may make it seem

Still, it's hard to see how any further progress can be made, says Edward Luce in the Financial Times. There is talk of another summit, but the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "now has the global recognition he wants and can wait out the clock for Trump's presidency to end".

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In any case, it's questionable whether Trump "has the patience to, or the realistic possibility, of persuading Kim to do something he has no intention of doing". Instead of pursuing the "chimera" of a North Korea-US peace deal, Trump would be better advised to pay more attention to the current "dangerous stand-off" between India and Pakistan.

Dr Matthew Partridge
Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri

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