NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/SUMMIT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump plans to hold a second summit meeting early next year with Kim Jong-un, even though North Korea has failed to follow through with promises to start dismantling its nuclear weapons program, John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, said on Tuesday…Mr. Bolton was referring to a pledge that the North Korean leader made in June at his first face-to-face meeting with Mr. Trump in Singapore. At the time, Mr. Kim said North Korea would work toward ‘complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.’ But in the nearly six months since the Singapore summit meeting, which Mr. Trump heralded with a tweet declaring North Korea ‘no longer a Nuclear Threat,’ Pyongyang has continued its production of nuclear fuel and weapons, and steadily improved its missile capabilities. Mr. Trump often notes that there have been no missile or nuclear tests in more than a year to argue that Mr. Kim is willing to make good on his promises. But Mr. Bolton and others on the president’s staff remain highly skeptical.”
–Edward Wong and David E. Sanger, “Trump to Meet With Kim Jong-un, Despite North Korea’s Lapses, Bolton Says,” The New York Times online, December 4, 2018