President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to cancel a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Thursday caught many American allies flat footed -- and one international relations expert now finds himself utterly baffled by the mixed messages the president conveyed in his cancellation letter.
Abraham Denmark, the director of the Asia Program at The Wilson Center, writes on Twitter that Trump's tone in his letter is "oddly warm and collegial," despite the fact that the president also threatens North Korea with annihilation if it doesn't change its behavior.
He also notes that Trump's reasons for cancelling the summit are very vague, which leads him to speculate that the president "realized he wasn’t going to get a big, beautiful deal and would prefer nothing to something that falls short of the miraculous."
As to what happens next, Denmark believes that Trump has harmed American credibility through his impulsive decisions to first accept the North Korea meeting, and then just as hastily back out of it.
"Coming just a few hours after North Korea demolished its nuclear test site, it guarantees that the US takes the blame for undermining diplomacy," Denmark explains. "North Korea comes out looking like the reasonable one."
Read the whole thread below.
