FOREIGN POLICY/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The White House on Friday [3-9-18] appeared to set new conditions for a meeting between President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, saying that the North must take ‘concrete steps’ toward denuclearizing for the U.S. to follow through on Trump’s acceptance of Kim’s invitation the previous evening.
U.S. and South Korean officials shocked the international community on Thursday by announcing that Kim had extended an invitation, and the president accepted, to meet directly with Trump by May, agreeing in the meantime to halt the country’s missile tests and signaling that it would be open to ending its nuclear weapons program.
But during the White House briefing on Friday, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders framed the matter of denuclearization as a precondition to any direct meeting between Trump and Kim, setting up a potential hurdle to negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea… Sanders disputed the assertion that a summit between Kim and Trump would take place without major concessions from North Korea on its weapons program… Trump on Thursday hailed the latest developments between the two estranged nations as ‘great progress,’ while adding that the U.S. would not ease sanctions on North Korea until it tempered its nuclear ambitions.
Sanders reiterated on Friday that the U.S. would not let up in its campaign to apply pressure to the country, despite the seeming thaw in diplomatic relations.”
-Cristiano Lima, “White House: North Korea must take ‘concrete steps’ before Trump meets Kim,” Politico, Mar. 9, 2018 03:17pm