SEOUL —  North Korea is casting doubt on next month’s summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump over joint Air Force drills taking place in South Korea, which it says are ruining the diplomatic mood.

North Korea always reacts angrily to the joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, considering them as a rehearsal for an invasion. But this year, with the sudden burst of diplomacy, had appeared to be different.

The South Korean and U.S. militaries had scaled back and played down the exercises, declining the news media the usual access to the drills. North Korea barely said a word about the drills during the computer simulation exercises that took place through April.

The two-week-long Max Thunder drills between the two countries’ Air Forces, an annual event that began on Friday, have, however, clearly struck a nerve in North Korea.

“This exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula,” the North’s Korean Central News Agency said in a report published early.  

[Something’s going on at North Korea’s nuclear test site. Maybe it really is closing. ]

The Max Thunder exercise involves about 100 warplanes, including eight F-22 radar-evading fighters and an unspecified number of B-52 bombers and F-15K jets, according to the South’s main Yonhap News Agency. During last year’s Max Thunder exercises, U.S. and South Korean fighter jets flew an average 60 sorties a day to showcase their firepower.

By mentioning the Panmunjom Declaration, North Korea was referring to the agreement signed last month by Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in following their historic summit. 

They agreed to work to turn the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War in 1953 into a peace treaty that would officially bring the war to a close, and also to pursue the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea suggested that the drills were putting the proposed summit between Trump and Kim, scheduled for June 12, in jeopardy.

“The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities,” KCNA said.

Trump and Kim are due to meet in Singapore, which would be the first time a North Korean leader had meet with a sitting U.S. president.

Trump and his top aides, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, both previously known for their hard line views on North Korea, have express optimism that a denuclearization agreement can be worked out. 

In surprising detail, Pompeo — who says Kim watches foreign news reports — has laid out the economic and development aid that would flow to the North Korean regime if it permanently and verifiably gives up its nuclear weapons program.

But North Korea, despite being run by one totalitarian family for the last seven decades, is not entirely monolithic. It does have its hawks and its doves, and analysts speculated that hard-liners in the military, concerned about the sudden talk of denuclearization, might be trying to interfere with the current diplomatic efforts.

[Pompeo says U.S. assuring Kim that it does not seek his overthrow ]

At the same time as threatening to scupper the summit with Trump, North Korea did cancel talks with South Korean officials that had been scheduled for Wednesday, less than 24 hours after agreeing to them. 

North Korea had said it would send five senior officials to Panmunjom for meetings with South Korean officials, the first such talks since the April 27 inter-Korean summit.

They were due to discuss some of the infrastructure aid that South Korea would provide to North Korea as part of their broader detente.

The North was going to send Ri Son Kwon, who leads the North Korean agency in charge of inter-Korean exchanges and was present at the summit, while the South was going to send senior officials from the transport ministry and forest service. 

“Through the inter-Korean high-level talks, (we) will push to lay the groundwork for sustainable development and lasting peace by having in-depth discussions and faithfully implementing the Panmunjom Declaration,” the South’s unification ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

Max Thunder is a two-week operation that has been held annually in the spring for about 10 years. It features the United States and South Korea flying strike aircraft together from air bases in South Korea and Japan to practice air-to-air combat. About 1,000 U.S. troops and 500 South Koreans were involved last year, according to a U.S. military statement published at the time.

Max Thunder is significantly smaller than Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, two other military exercises that were held in April, and briefly paused to reduce tensions as Kim and Moon could meet at the border at the demilitarized zone between their nations to discuss potential peace plans.

The Pentagon said in March that Foal Eagle, which includes ground maneuvers, would involve about 11,500 U.S. troops and 290,000 South Koreans this year, while Key Resolve would focus more on computer simulation and involve about 12,200 U.S. troops and 10,000 South Koreans.

The threat by North Korea to cancel the summit now would seem to contradict the message that South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong brought to the White House in March, when Kim volunteered to meet with Trump. At that time, Kim’s message was that North Korea would refrain from additional nuclear or missile testing and understood “that the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and the United States must continue.”

Dan Lamothe contributed to this story.

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The United States is assuring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that his ouster is not part of the agenda for the summit next month between Kim and President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday.

“We will have to provide security assurances, to be sure,” Pompeo said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

The promise not to invade North Korea or otherwise seek Kim’s overthrow would be incentive for him to give up his nuclear weapons.

“This has been a trade-off that has been pending for 25 years,” Pompeo said, referring to the long history of failed negotiations with Pyongyang as well as the North Korean narrative that the United States is a mortal threat.

Trump is scheduled to meet Kim in Singapore on June­ 12 for an unprecedented summit.

On CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Pompeo said he had already provided that assurance to Kim.

“I have told him that what President Trump wants is to see the North Korean regime get rid of its nuclear weapons program, completely and in totality, and in exchange for that we are prepared to ensure that the North Korean people get the opportunity that they so richly deserve.”

[North Korea frees 3 American prisoners ahead of a planned Trump-Kim summit]

Pompeo added: “No president has ever put America in a position where the North Korean leadership thought that this was truly possible, that the Americans would actually do this, would lead to the place where America was no longer held at risk by the North Korean regime.”

The U.S. position is now new — Pompeo’s predecessor, Rex Tillerson, also had stressed that the United States would not seek Kim’s ouster, but it carries additional weight now that Trump and Kim are to meet face to face. It is also significant because of past statements by both Pompeo and new White House national security adviser John Bolton about potential regime change in North Korea.

Pompeo said last year that the most dangerous element of the North Korea nuclear weapons problem “is the character who holds the control” over the weapons.

“So, from the administration’s perspective, the most important thing we can do is separate those two, right?” Pompeo, who was CIA director at the time, had said at the Aspen Security Forum. “Separate capacity and someone who might well have intent and break those two apart.”

However, he told senators during his confirmation hearing last month that he does not support regime change in North Korea.

[Trump becomes more dovish toward North Korea, but surrounds himself with hawks]

Bolton, speaking Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said his own past advocacy for regime change in North Korea and in Iran were the views of “a free agent” and are irrelevant to his current job.

“I’m the national security adviser to the president,” but Trump calls the shots, Bolton said.

As recently as December, Bolton had said that he favored “regime elimination” in North Korea.

“My proposal would be: Eliminate the regime by reunifying the peninsula under South Korean control,” Bolton had said on Fox News, where he was a frequent commentator. Asked whether he is calling for regime change, he replied, “Yes. Regime elimination with the Chinese. This is something we need to do with them.”

Bolton said that if Trump can negotiate an agreement with Kim, it might be submitted to the Senate as a treaty as the next step in the ratification process.

“It’s entirely possible we could,” Bolton said, adding that to do so would address “one of the criticisms of the Iran deal.”

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal was concluded as a compact among nations but was not submitted to the Senate for ratification by the Obama administration. Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement last week. Bolton said Sunday that it should not have come as a surprise to European powers.

European companies could be subject to U.S. sanctions if they continue doing some business with Iran, he said, adding that the threat of such sanctions will have a “dramatic” effect on Iran’s already struggling economy.

[North Korea’s Kim wants to talk to Trump about mutual nuclear issues, says Chinese media]

On ABC’s “This Week,” Bolton said Trump will raise the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea as well as the detention of South Koreans when he sees Kim. Both issues are of intense importance to U.S. allies. But Bolton hedged on how far Trump might take any human rights criticism of a regime the United States has previously accused of mass incarceration, torture and starvation of civilians.

“This first meeting is going to be primarily on denuclearization,” Bolton said, adding that other issues could follow.

Pompeo also said that if the summit leads to successful negotiations, the outcome will bring private investment in North Korea. He said it will include helping North Korea build out its energy grid and develop its agriculture program so it can grow enough food for its people.

“Those are the kinds of things that, if we get what it is the president has demanded — the complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of North Korea — that the American people will offer in spades,” he said.

Pompeo said a lot of work remains to achieve that goal.

“Our eyes are wide open with respect to the risks, but it is our fervent hope that Chairman Kim wants to make a strategic change,” he said, “a strategic change in the direction for his country and his people, and if he’s prepared to do that, President Trump is prepared to assure that this can be a successful transition.”

Pompeo went to North Korea last week to discuss preparations for the summit and returned with three U.S. citizens who had been detained in North Korea. He met for almost 90 minutes with Kim, his second face-to-face encounter with the North Korean leader, and he described him as professional and knowledgeable.

“He, too is preparing for June 12, he and his team,” Pompeo said. “We’ll be working with them to put our two leaders in a position where it’s just possible we might pull off a historic undertaking.”

On CBS, Pompeo contrasted the Trump administration’s approach with those of previous presidents who tried to negotiate North Korea’s denuclearization.

“We’re hopeful that this will be different,” he said. “That we won’t do the traditional model, where they do something, and we give them a bunch of money, and then both sides walk away. We’re hoping this will be bigger, different, faster. Our ask is complete and total denuclearization of North Korea, and it is the president’s intention to achieve that. “

In exchange, he said, North Korea will get what Pompeo characterized as “our finest” — “our entrepreneurs, our risk takers. our capital providers.”

He said private equity, encouraged by sanctions relief, would help North Korea improve its electrical grid, infrastructure and agricultural production.

“We can create the conditions for real economic prosperity for the North Korean people that will rival that of the South,” he said.

Read more:

My journey to North Korea with the secretary of state

Talk of peace with North Korea has the South wondering: Will this time be different?

Kim-Xi meeting presents a new challenge for Trump on North Korea

President Trump pledged on Sunday to help Chinese telecom giant ZTE return to business, days after the company said it would cease “major operating activities” because of the U.S. government’s recent trade restrictions, a stunning shift in tone for a president who has long accused China of stealing U.S. jobs.

“President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” Trump tweeted. “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”

The comment could presage a reversal of one of the Trump administration’s toughest actions to date against a Chinese company. In April, the Commerce Department penalized ZTE for violating a settlement with the U.S. government over illegal shipments to Iran and North Korea. As a result, the Trump administration barred U.S. firms for seven years from exporting critical microchips and other parts to ZTE, the world’s fourth-largest smartphone manufacturer.

[Nothing is certain about Trump’s trade policy other than the uncertainty]

Lacking those components, ZTE halted operations, stressing in a statement Wednesday that it is “actively communicating with the relevant U.S. government departments in order to facilitate the modification or reversal” of the Commerce Department’s order.

Trump’s tweet comes just days before U.S. officials are planning to meet with Liu He, one of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s closest advisers, to discuss the strained trade ties. That meeting is expected to be held in Washington this week or next. Trump’s new willingness to try to save ZTE also marks a sharp reversal from current U.S. policy, which had sought to punish the firm for repeatedly failing to make changes in the face of U.S. sanctions. The Treasury Department and the Commerce Department had been strongly aligned against ZTE as recently as several days ago.

It’s highly unusual for a president to personally intervene in a regulatory matter and could undercut the leverage of Treasury and Commerce officials seeking to enforce sanctions and trade rules. It could send the signal to foreign leaders that anything can be put on the bargaining table as Trump seeks to cut trade deals.

ZTE’s business in the United States has also raised concerns among national security officials. Shortly after Trump’s tweet, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) responded, “Our intelligence agencies have warned that ZTE technology and phones pose a major cyber security threat. You should care more about our national security than Chinese jobs.”

Meanwhile, Trump is trying to broker a historic agreement with North Korea in an attempt to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. The president has said that his economic approach to China is linked to his national security strategy, and China plays an integral part in any decision made by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a spokesman for the Commerce Department. A ZTE spokesman also did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Nevertheless, trade tensions between the United States and China remain sky high. Trump has proposed tariffs on as much as $60 billion in Chinese goods, and Beijing has responded in kind, prompting only continued threats from the president, who repeatedly lamented the trade deficit between the two countries during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Recently, though, the Trump administration also has sought to limit the encroachment of Chinese telecommunications firms in the United States. The Defense Department in April ordered military exchanges to cease selling ZTE phones on U.S. bases. And the Federal Communications Commission recently moved toward prohibiting U.S. Internet providers that receive federal funds from spending them on equipment made by companies such as Huawei, another major Chinese telecom player.

The U.S. government initially penalized ZTE in 2017, requiring it to pay $1.19 billion to settle charges that it violated U.S. sanctions in selling equipment to Iran and North Korea. As part of the settlement, ZTE also was required to punish employees involved in the matter and tighten its internal monitoring.

But U.S. officials said this year that ZTE didn’t discipline all the employees involved in the violations. “This egregious behavior cannot be ignored,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in April.

Trump’s international economic policies have been marked by ultimatums and threats that are frequently followed by exemptions and reversals. Foreign leaders often do not know whether he will follow through on something he vows to do or whether he will back down.

For example, he has said that he would impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, but he has temporarily exempted Canada, Mexico, the European Union and several other countries while leaving China and Japan searching for answers.

His advisers have launched official or unofficial trade discussions with numerous countries, and these talks are wrapped in uncertainty because it is unclear whether Trump will follow through on promises to impose tariffs, even if they might raise prices for U.S. consumers.

But nowhere is the United States’ trade relationship as complicated as with China. During the campaign, Trump blasted China for what he alleged was a pattern of cheating through currency devaluation and other measures to steal American jobs and hurt U.S. workers.

[U.S. and China swap hard-line lists of demands at trade talks in Beijing]

The United States buys more than $500 billion in goods from China each year, but Trump has proposed to force China to buy an additional $200 billion in goods from the United States.

Several weeks ago, as tensions between the White House and Beijing escalated, both sides promised to impose increasingly severe trade restrictions on the other, spooking financial markets amid fears of a trade war.

Chinese leaders have tried to resist Trump’s demands, but in recent weeks they have shown a willingness to negotiate. The economies are inextricably linked, as China relies on U.S. consumers to buy many of its products, and the United States relies on Chinese producers for a range of goods.

Trump has repeatedly cited a “friendship” with Xi, though they’ve met only a few times, and he has said that this relationship will endure no matter what happens with the trade talks. One of the biggest sources of tension between the two countries, though, is the allegation that China steals intellectual property from U.S. companies and then retools it for its firms.

Sen. John McCain is 2,200 miles from Washington and hasn’t been on Capitol Hill in five months, but he showed this week that he remains a potent force in national politics and a polarizing figure within the Republican Party.

From his home in Sedona, Ariz., where he is receiving treatment for an aggressive and typically fatal type of brain cancer, McCain has challenged and praised the Trump administration’s actions on national security — his voice limited to news releases and Twitter.

But his declaration Wednesday in opposition to Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee for CIA director, has uniquely roiled the political scene. The denunciation has prompted reactions from fellow senators and a former vice president, as well as intemperate remarks from some Republicans aligned with Trump, including a White House aide.

It has revived the fierce debate over torture and its effectiveness in extracting information in the years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — from a man who speaks from experience. McCain was held for 5½ years in a North Vietnamese prison, often deprived of sleep, food and medical care, after a jet he piloted was shot down over Hanoi.

[The Fix: The Trump White House crossed a new threshold for political debasement this week]

And while McCain is not expected to cast a vote, his opposition to Haspel — based on her record overseeing controversial CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists — has injected uncertainty into her confirmation.

As Republicans and Democrats come to grips with a Senate without him, McCain has remained in Arizona, receiving visitors on the deck of his cabin.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of McCain’s closest friends, returned this week from an extended visit there and described his outlook: “One foot in front of the other.”

“We’re talking about the future,” Graham added. “We talk about what’s going on in the Mideast. I was pleasantly surprised [by his vigor], and I’m looking forward to going back.”

But there is little expectation on Capitol Hill that McCain, 81, will ever return to his old haunt as elder statesman, jet-setting diplomat, military expert and conscience of the Republican Party. That is the subtext of his forthcoming book, “The Restless Wave,” an elegiac volume set for release later this month in which McCain recounts and defends his efforts to expose and prevent torture, combat Russian expansionism and advance the postwar international order.

[Lindsey Graham is encouraged after visiting John McCain: ‘No talking about funerals’]

“Before I leave I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations,” he writes. “I would like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different. We are citizens of a republic made of shared ideals forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one. Even in times of political turmoil such as these, we share that awesome heritage and the responsibility to embrace it.”

McCain also questions Trump more directly in the book, acknowledging “glimmers of hope” in his foreign policy but expressing grave doubts about Trump himself.

“I’m not sure what to make of President Trump’s convictions,” he writes, adding, “The appearance of toughness or a reality show facsimile of toughness seems to matter more than any of our values.”

McCain’s illness has added gravity to his opposition to Haspel, who as a senior CIA official during the post-9/11 war on terrorism oversaw “enhanced interrogations” of terrorism suspects that some — including McCain — have described as torture.

During a confirmation hearing Wednesday, Haspel pledged that she would never allow the CIA to engage in those types of interrogations under her watch. But she repeatedly declined to characterize the CIA’s previous interrogation methods as immoral, saying they were authorized under the law.

The same day, former vice president Richard B. Cheney — the leading proponent of the interrogation techniques inside the George W. Bush administration — told the Fox Business Network that the CIA’s actions did not amount to torture. He also argued, in contradiction of a Senate report on the issue, that “it worked.”

“If it was my call,” he said, “I’d do it again.”

Hours later, McCain issued a statement declaring that “the methods we employ to keep our nation safe must be as right and just as the values we aspire to live up to and promote in the world.”

“I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense,” he said. “However, Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying.”

[McCain urges Senate to reject Trump’s CIA nominee]

That denunciation infuriated some Republicans who have seen McCain as a motivated opponent of Trump and have moved away from the more idealistic strain of conservatism that McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, has embodied.

The Washington Post and other media outlets reported Thursday that Kelly Sadler, a White House communications official, dismissed McCain’s opposition in a staff meeting, saying, “It doesn’t matter; he’s dying, anyway.”

The White House has not disputed the report. “I’m not going to comment on an internal staff meeting,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday.

Separately Thursday, retired Air Force Gen. Thomas McInerney said during an appearance on the Fox Business Network that torture “worked on John” during McCain’s years in captivity. “That’s why they call him ‘Songbird John,’ ” McInerney said.

Neither Sadler nor McInerney has publicly apologized. Independent accounts of McCain’s time in North Vietnamese captivity do not include any suggestion that he offered material information to his captors, and McCain says the same. He did, by multiple accounts, refuse offers of early release based on his status as the son of a Navy admiral.

His defense fell to his family and some of his old friends in Washington. His wife, Cindy, tweeted a rebuke at Sadler, and daughter Meghan addressed the attacks during Friday’s broadcast of “The View,” the ABC daytime talk show she co-hosts.

“I don’t understand what kind of environment you’re working in when that would be acceptable, and then you can come to work the next day and still have a job,” she said.

She added: “My father’s legacy is going to be talked about for hundreds and hundreds of years. These people? Nothingburgers. Nobody’s going to remember you.”

Former vice president Joe Biden issued a sharp statement, accusing the Trump administration of hitting “rock bottom.”

“John McCain is a genuine hero — a man of valor whose sacrifices for his country are immeasurable,” he said. “As he fights for his life, he deserves better — so much better.”

It is possible, though unlikely, that McCain’s opposition to Haspel’s nomination could sink her prospects for confirmation. Most Democrats have opposed her appointment; Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) both cited McCain in announcing their opposition to Haspel on Friday.

Several senators have yet to announce their intentions, and one key vote belongs to Arizona’s junior senator, Republican Jeff Flake, who recently visited McCain in Sedona and said Thursday that McCain’s words were weighing heavily on his decision.

“I’ve always shared McCain’s views on torture and looked up to him on this,” he said.

Sean Sullivan, Seung Min Kim and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

Read more

The Fix: The Trump White House crossed a new threshold for political debasement this week

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