That's the tweet Trump published after his meeting with Kim Jong-Un in Singapore. He claimed that there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea, because Kim Jong-Un had agreed to give up his nuclear weapons. He repeated that claim to journalists in the days following the summit.
Unfortunately, his bold claims were premature. The agreement he signed with the North Korea leader was not a binding agreement for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, and provided for no kind of verification that they would do so. It was just a feel-good moment for both leaders that meant nothing.
Has North Korea taken steps to give up those weapons? Have they even stopped production of nuclear weapons and missiles? NO! In fact, they have done just the opposite. Our intelligence agencies have now verified that North Korea has taken steps to increase their ability to produce nuclear weapons and the missiles to carry those weapons.
Consider this from military.com:
U.S. intelligence officials believe North Korea has been "deceiving" the U.S., saying the Hermit Kingdom was bolstering production for nuclear weapons at "multiple secret sites" in the past few months, a report stated. Officials from the CIA and other intelligence agencies told NBC News the regime has increased its production of enriched uranium for the weapons despite the historic summit earlier this month between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump. Kim and Trump both signed a document on June 12 stating that Pyongyang would work toward "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.". . . However, the officials believed North Korea was "positioning itself to extract every concession it can from the Trump administration -- while clinging to nuclear weapons it believes are essential to survival." And this from time.com:
The Middlebury Institute of International Studies report found that North Korea has recently expanded a factory complex in the eastern city of Hamhung that produces key engines for solid-fuel ballistic missiles. The factory also makes other missile components, including re-entry vehicles for warheads that could be used on longer-range missiles capable of reaching the U.S.
“The expansion suggests that, despite hopes for denuclearization, Kim Jong Un is committed to increasing North Korea’s stockpile of nuclear-armed missiles,” the report’s authors David Schmerler and Jeffrey Lewis wrote. Donald Trump got played by the North Korean leader. Kim just wanted his moment on the world stage, and Trump was dumb enough to give it to him. Nothing has changed about the North Korean nuclear threat.Americans didn't really believe Trump's bragging anyway. Only 24% of Americans said in a recent poll that they believed North Korea had agreed to give up nuclear weapons, and that included less than half of Republicans (49%). It seems that the U.S. public was smarter than Trump
The chart below is from the latest Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between June 24th and 26th of a national sample of 1,500 adults, with a margin of error of 3.1 points.
