Trump Cancels Diplomatic Summit in Letter to Kim Jong Un

Getty President Trump has cancelled a diplomatic summit with Kim Jung Un over a dispute between the two administrations.

President Donald Trump will not be meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month for a scheduled diplomatic summit, he announced in a letter released by the White House Thursday morning.

“I was very much looking forward to being there with you. Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump wrote. “Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.”

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Trump and Kim were scheduled to meet in Singapore on June 12, for what would have been a historic first face-to-face meeting between a US and North Korean leader.

According to the National Review, the summit was canceled shortly after foreign policy adviser John Bolton invoked the example of the deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhaffi to illustrate the consequences for Kim Jong Un if North Korea refused to cooperate with the United States.

“This will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn’t make a deal,” Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with Fox News, adding that his statement was “more of a fact” than a threat.

President Trump then decided to withdraw from the summit after a North Korean vice minister of foreign affairs responded to Pence, called Pence a “political dummy,” and deemed his threat “unbridled and impudent.” North Korean officials also publicly vowed to never surrender their nuclear capabilities in exchange for economic concessions.

According to CNN, the Trump administration was furious about the comment and “wanted to respond forcefully,” multiple sources told the news outlet.

“You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used,” the letter stated.

“Whether the US will meet us at a meeting room or encounter us at nuclear-to-nuclear showdown is entirely dependent upon the decision and behavior of the United States,” Choe Son Hui, a vice-minister in the North Korean Foreign Ministry, told North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency Thursday.