--- title: Trump's Go-It-Alone Strategy on North Korea Led to a Fight description: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's planned summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin is designed to increase pressure on Donald Trump. canonical: https://time.com/5576489/kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/ author: John Walcott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-04-25T05:35:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:51.107Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump's Go-It-Alone Strategy on North Korea Led to a White House Fight og:description: North Korea, meantime, has a unified strategy og:url: https://time.com/5576489/kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78ebf145a5cf6e69/6989483f7cdbac26bcd5f58f/trump-kim-jong-un-relations.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US President Donald Trump walks with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during a break in talks at the second US-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump's Go-It-Alone Strategy on North Korea Led to a White House Fight twitter:description: North Korea, meantime, has a unified strategy twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78ebf145a5cf6e69/6989483f7cdbac26bcd5f58f/trump-kim-jong-un-relations.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump's Go-It-Alone Strategy on North Korea Led to a White House Fight > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Russian President Putin Hosts Kim Jong Un for Talks on North Korean Nuclear Standoff [Watch (HLS stream): Russian President Putin Hosts Kim Jong Un for Talks on North Korean Nuclear Standoff](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aMTU1IfH.m3u8) (0:32)  _Published 2019-04-25. Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down for talks Thursday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying the summit should help plan joint efforts to resolve a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear program._ by [John Walcott](https://time.com/author/john-walcott/) ## John Walcott Apr 25, 2019 5:35 AM UTC  US President Donald Trump walks with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during a break in talks at the second US-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on Feb. 28, 2019\. Trump said relations with North Korea's Kim Jong Un remain “very good” after he suggested a third summit. US President Donald Trump walks with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during a break in talks at the second US-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi on Feb. 28, 2019\. Trump said relations with North Korea's Kim Jong Un remain “very good” after he suggested a third summit. Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images by [John Walcott](https://time.com/author/john-walcott/) ## John Walcott Apr 25, 2019 5:35 AM UTC During a White House meeting last month, National Security Advisor John Bolton told other senior officials that the U.S. would impose sanctions on two Chinese shipping companies for violating international sanctions on North Korea, one attendee and two other officials from different agencies who were briefed on it tell TIME. At the March 21 meeting, Bolton informed Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan of the decision to impose sanctions on two Chinese shipping companies for violating international sanctions by shipping crude oil to North Korea, according to an official who was present at the meeting. When another participant asked if the President had signed off on the decision, this official said, Bolton grew angry, chewed him out, and said the sanctions would not be imposed if Trump had not approved them, the official said. The following day, Trump abruptly canceled the sanctions. Two senior officials say the canceled sanctions were just the latest example of the lack of a coherent strategy within the Trump Administration to eliminate the nuclear threat North Korea poses to South Korea, Japan, and to the U.S. forces based there, and that it could pose to parts of the United States if it succeeds in developing a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. Instead, these two U.S. officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, Trump appears to be following a familiar script, acting as the lone U.S. negotiator, issuing extreme demands and threats, and deliberately causing confusion about his objectives. By contrast, the officials and outside experts say that [North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin](http://time.com/5577801/vladimir-putin-kim-jong-un-meeting-russia/), which began Wednesday, is part of a calibrated campaign to increase pressure on Trump to lift economic sanctions on North Korea without the regime first committing to abandon its nuclear weapons. Officials and experts say that unlike the Trump Administration, there is no confusion about who makes all the decisions in North Korea, and mounting evidence that Kim is following a carefully crafted script, endorsed by China, his country’s most important ally, in his effort to move beyond [the failed summit in Hanoi](http://time.com/5541197/quick-read-bremmer-north-korea-summit/) and cut a deal with Trump. In an apparent effort to confine the negotiations to Trump and Kim, the North Korean Foreign Ministry [called on Trump to replace Secretary of State Mike Pompeo](http://time.com/5573089/north-korea-remove-mike-pompeo-nuclear-negotiations/) with “somebody more mature”, which two of the U.S. officials called an obvious reference to Trump himself. North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, meanwhile, called Bolton “dim sighted” after the national security advisor [said there could be no third summit](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/world/asia/north-korea-john-bolton.html) between Trump and Kim until there is “a real indication from North Korea that they’ve made the strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons.” “Kim Jong Un is clearly still hoping to draw Donald Trump back into another summit with the hopes that he can get a version of the deal that was on offer in Hanoi — some limited steps to shut down older nuclear facilities in exchange for the lifting of the main United Nations sanctions which amount to a de facto trade embargo against North Korea,” says Daniel Sneider, a Korea expert at Stanford University. “And Trump hasn’t shut that door entirely, so there is a reason for them to hope this might happen, particularly later in the year when the election campaign has heated up.” At the same time, Kim is sending not-so-subtle reminders to Trump that North Korea has options, argues Evans Revere, a former senior State Department Asia specialist now with the Washington-based Albright Stonebridge Group, which is headed by Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton. In addition to scheduling a summit with Putin, whose Russia has played host to an estimated 30,000 North Korean workers, most of whose earnings are repatriated to the impoverished country — and its not-so-impoverished rulers — recent reminders have included a well-publicized visit by Kim to an airbase and a test, supervised by Kim, according to state media, of “a new tactical guided weapon”. However, both the two U.S. officials and a third Administration Asia expert noted, the test did not violate the North’s agreement to halt tests of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, a move that left the door open to a resumption of the nuclear negotiations after the failure at the Hanoi summit. At the same time, Kim has continued pressing [South Korean President Moon Jae-in](http://time.com/person-of-the-year-2018-moon-jae-in-runner-up/) to press ahead with economic initiatives between the two Koreas in an effort to ease the economic hardships in his nation that he sanctions have worsened and to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington. “Look for more moves along these lines in the coming weeks and months, and particularly as the U.S. presidential campaign unfolds,” Revere wrote in a recent edition of The Nelson Report, a daily bulletin devoted largely to expert commentary on Northeast Asia. “The North Koreans are very good at this game.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5576489/kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5576489/kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/"},"headline":"Trump's Go-It-Alone Strategy on North Korea Led to a White House Fight","datePublished":"2019-04-25T05:35:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:52:51.107Z","description":"A carefully calibrated campaign to get sanctions lifted","url":"https://time.com/5576489/kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/","keywords":["Foreign Policy","North Korea","White House","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78ebf145a5cf6e69/6989483f7cdbac26bcd5f58f/trump-kim-jong-un-relations.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"John Walcott","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/john-walcott/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt78ebf145a5cf6e69/6989483f7cdbac26bcd5f58f/trump-kim-jong-un-relations.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US President Donald Trump walks with North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un during a break in talks at the second US-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi","caption":"U.S. President Donald Trump said relations with North Korea's Kim Jong Un remain “very good” after he suggested a third summit.","creditText":"Saul Loeb—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/foreign-policy/","name":"Foreign Policy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5576489/kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/","name":"Trump's Go-It-Alone Strategy on North Korea Led to a White House Fight"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Russian President Putin Hosts Kim Jong Un for Talks on North Korean Nuclear Standoff","description":"Russian President Vladimir Putin sat down for talks Thursday with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying the summit should help plan joint efforts to resolve a standoff over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/aMTU1IfH/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-04-25T04:12:23.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/aMTU1IfH.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5576489/kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/","duration":"PT32S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5576489/kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```