Trump seeks Kim meeting without the 'axis of adults' to keep him in check

Donald Trump is once again making overtures toward North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, picking up where he left off during his first term.

On Sunday, Trump ordered a scaling back of the annual US-South Korea joint military exercise known as Ulchi Freedom Shield, sending a conciliatory signal toward Pyongyang.

Then on Wednesday, he told reporters he intended to meet Kim this year, and suggested North Korea was a nuclear power by noting that Kim "has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons" — remarks widely interpreted as tacitly accepting the North's nuclear status.

During his first term, Trump met Kim three times — in Singapore in June 2018, in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019, and at Panmunjom in June 2019. If a summit is arranged before the end of this year, it would be their fourth meeting in more than seven years.

Should Trump sit down with Kim again, the most significant difference from his first term is the absence of what was once called the "axis of adults" around him.

Senior first-term foreign policy and national security officials — including former Defense Secretary James Mattis, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and former National Security Adviser John Bolton — served as a check on Trump during the three summits, working to prevent him from making unilateral concessions in pursuit of a deal or taking unilateral decisions that could weaken US security alliances.

Mattis and Kelly are credited with blocking Trump from withdrawing US Forces Korea, a concession he was reportedly considering ahead of the first North Korea summit.

Bolton, a North Korea hawk, reportedly put the brakes on a so-called "small deal" at the Hanoi summit, where Trump and Kim were moving toward exchanging the dismantlement of the Yongbyon nuclear facility for the lifting of sanctions against the North.

All three eventually left the administration after clashing with Trump over North Korea policy and other foreign policy and national security matters.

In his second term, Trump has done the opposite — systematically sidelining anyone who might slow him down and filling the core of his administration with loyalists.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host known for his strong support of Trump, is the most prominent example.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as national security adviser, is generally seen as closer to traditional conservatism than to the hard-line MAGA base, but he has shown no visible friction with Trump in the second administration.

The upshot is that, for the time being, no one around Trump can check his impulsive, deal-obsessed instincts when he sits down with Kim.

As Trump moves to draw Kim to the negotiating table with dramatic gestures — scaling back joint military exercises and effectively acknowledging North Korea's nuclear status — veterans of his first-term national security team are sounding the alarm.

Bolton published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday under the headline "Trump Is Helping North Korea's Threat Grow," writing that "by reducing joint military exercises, the president is increasing the danger and alarming our allies."

"He made the same unilateral concessions in his first term, and this mistake is now more serious," Bolton wrote. "The dollars and won spent on joint exercises are worth it. All of this was explained to President Trump during his first term, but he doesn't seem to have understood it at all."

Bolton also wrote that Trump's move to scale back the exercises "is weakening deterrence against North Korea and increasing the threat. Beyond the military impact, the political signal being sent to South Korea and other allies is grim."

On the broader US-South Korea relationship, Bolton said Trump's criticism of Seoul for its reluctance to engage in resolving Middle East crises, combined with ongoing friction over tariffs and investment pledges, "only further complicates the bilateral relationship."

Bolton added: "We should hope that the White House's attention moves away from North Korea to something else — otherwise, Trump's next social media post may announce that he is flying to Pyongyang to rekindle his bromance with the world's only hereditary communist dictator."