Trump cancels Pompeo's trip to North Korea over stalled nuclear diplomacy

• Chinese President Xi to visit North Korea next month: Straits Times
• North Korea: US calls on Russia and China to tackle breaches of oil sanctions

It was a dramatic shift of tone for Trump, who had previously hailed his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a success and said the North Korean nuclear threat was over, despite no real sign Pyongyang was willing to give up its nuclear weapons.

But Trump still kept the door open to a second summit with Kim, with whom the president recently said he has “great chemistry.””I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The North Korean mission to the United Nations declined to comment.

Negotiations have been all but deadlocked since the June summit in Singapore. Pompeo has pressed for tangible steps toward North Korea’s abandonment of its nuclear arsenal while Pyongyang is demanding that Washington first make concessions of its own.

Trump’s statement came just a day after Pompeo said he would again visit North Korea and would take his new special envoy, former auto industry executive Stephen Biegun, with him.

But Trump asked Pompeo not to go during a Friday meeting and they crafted the tweets together, White House officials said.

Some U.S. intelligence and defense officials had considered Pompeo’s latest trip to be premature and said the prospects for significant progress appeared dim.

Pompeo, who would have been making his second visit to Pyongyang since the summit, had not been due to meet Kim this time.

Trump himself was still open to another meeting with Kim, in hopes of advancing the process, but was not pleased with the latest signals from North Korea, a White House official said.

Trump put some of the onus on China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and a crucial actor in enforcing sanctions to keep pressure on Pyongyang.

“Because of our much tougher Trading stance with China, I do not believe they are helping with the process of denuclearization as they once were (despite the UN Sanctions which are in place),” Trump said on Twitter.

“Secretary Pompeo looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our Trading relationship with China is resolved,” Trump wrote. “In the meantime I would like to send my warmest regards and respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!”

Trump told Reuters on Monday he believed Kim had taken specific steps toward denuclearization and that they would “most likely” meet again.