Donald Trump needs unfamiliar tools like patience for North Korea talks

President Donald Trump will need to adopt an unfamiliar set of traits -- patience, persistence, clear goals and conditions -- and be prepared to walk away when he meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, people who have negotiated with Kim’s regime say.


Trump’s apparently impromptu decision to begin setting up talks contrasts with Kim’s situation -- North Korea has prepared deliberately for decades for a meeting with the sitting U.S. president as a major step toward gaining international legitimacy.


Negotiations with the North Korean regime are “very painstaking and, frankly, painful,” said Christopher Hill, who served as U.S. ambassador to South Korea and assistant secretary of state under President George W. Bush. “You think you have an agreement one minute and then you don’t the next minute.”