After spending only four hours together in Singapore, President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un already had “developed a very special bond,” according to Trump—which seems to be the major outcome of the summit. Trump apparently sees the summit as a victory for instinct over planning, and claimed that the summit’s results were a great outcome for the United States—even if it looked like he had made a major concession (giving up joint war games with South Korea) in return for the North doing little or nothing.
This can be seen by the headlines alone: “Trump Was Outfoxed in Singapore” (New York Times); “Trump just struck a shockingly weak deal with North Korea” (Vox); “Trump’s Singapore Summit Was a Bust—for the U.S.” (Daily Beast).
Meanwhile, “President Trump declared that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat, insisting ‘everybody can now feel much safer’ ” (BBC News).
Confused by the distance between the content of the deal, and the president’s claims? So are a lot of people.
The Washington Post did a roundup of how visual satirists viewed the president’s claims, or what it called “the Singapore slinging of rhetoric.”
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