03-04-2019, 05:06 PM
This article addresses a point that get lost in the "good to walk away from a bad deal" mantra.
It is not good to set yourself up for a bad deal, especially if you are president. In this article, Trump doesn't take all the blame, though.
Experts: 'Experience Matters' in Negotiating With North Korea
https://www.voanews.com/a/experts-experience-matters-in-negotiating-with-north-korea/4810437.html
WASHINGTON —
The American team’s lack of experience in negotiating with North Koreans, as well as a lack of preparation, may have contributed to the collapse of this week’s Hanoi summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, who favors top-down diplomacy, according to experts.
‘Top-down approach to negotiating’
“This was the risk you take when you do a top-down approach to negotiating,” said Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council’s senior director for East Asia affairs during the George W. Bush administration. “In other words, clearly, an agreement hadn’t been made before the men got to Hanoi.”
Wilder said Kim misjudged Trump and “overplayed his hand” and “overreached in the negotiations,” thinking that he could “get something big for putting very little on the table,” which was based on his previous experience in dealing with Trump, who was “quite easy on the North Korean leader and did not demand a great deal of him” at the first summit.
“The failure of the Hanoi summit shows the downside of top-down diplomacy,” Manning said. “I would have insisted on having the basic framework and some minimal nuclear-for-benefit trade-off agreed to before I agreed to a summit.”
Hill said, “I think it kind of speaks to some of the preparation, which I thought was inadequate.”
He added, “There needs to be a clearer understanding about [reaching agreements prior to talks] before they ask the president, before the president gets involved.”
.................
I can add one more point to this: if some smaller agreements or concessions or whatever had been made before hand by both sides, then both would have been able to list "accomplishments" and conveyed a sense of progress, steps forward taken, and that time had been well spent for both parties, instead of just Kim, who, like Putin, has the president's trust over his own intel services now.
Other presidential teams preparing summits have understood this from the get go.
It is not good to set yourself up for a bad deal, especially if you are president. In this article, Trump doesn't take all the blame, though.
Experts: 'Experience Matters' in Negotiating With North Korea
https://www.voanews.com/a/experts-experience-matters-in-negotiating-with-north-korea/4810437.html
WASHINGTON —
The American team’s lack of experience in negotiating with North Koreans, as well as a lack of preparation, may have contributed to the collapse of this week’s Hanoi summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, who favors top-down diplomacy, according to experts.
‘Top-down approach to negotiating’
“This was the risk you take when you do a top-down approach to negotiating,” said Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council’s senior director for East Asia affairs during the George W. Bush administration. “In other words, clearly, an agreement hadn’t been made before the men got to Hanoi.”
Wilder said Kim misjudged Trump and “overplayed his hand” and “overreached in the negotiations,” thinking that he could “get something big for putting very little on the table,” which was based on his previous experience in dealing with Trump, who was “quite easy on the North Korean leader and did not demand a great deal of him” at the first summit.
“The failure of the Hanoi summit shows the downside of top-down diplomacy,” Manning said. “I would have insisted on having the basic framework and some minimal nuclear-for-benefit trade-off agreed to before I agreed to a summit.”
Hill said, “I think it kind of speaks to some of the preparation, which I thought was inadequate.”
He added, “There needs to be a clearer understanding about [reaching agreements prior to talks] before they ask the president, before the president gets involved.”
.................
I can add one more point to this: if some smaller agreements or concessions or whatever had been made before hand by both sides, then both would have been able to list "accomplishments" and conveyed a sense of progress, steps forward taken, and that time had been well spent for both parties, instead of just Kim, who, like Putin, has the president's trust over his own intel services now.
Other presidential teams preparing summits have understood this from the get go.
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
