President Donald Trump has canceled the summit with North Korea's dictator Kim Jong-un that was scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
In a statement released May 24, Trump wrote while he felt a "wonderful dialogue was building up" there was "tremendous anger and open hostility" still.
One example of hostility arose earlier this month when John Bolton, the national security advisor, angered North Korean diplomats by suggesting the 2003 voluntary disarmament of Libya could be the model for what should happen to North Korea. A North Korean official also called Vice President Mike Pence a "political dummy."
“We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us,” Choe Son Hui, a North Korean vice foreign minister, said in the New York Times.
Early optimism, strengthened by the release of three Korean-Americans who were imprisoned in North Korea and the halting of nuclear missle tests, seems to have fizzled out.
However, Trump's letter left open the possibility of rescheduling the summit even as he reminded Jong-un about the "massive and powerful" nuclear capabilities the United States possesses.
