US officials know North Korea won't give up nukes -- but Trump keeps getting tricked by Kim's nice letters: report

So far, there has been no concrete progress made on the American effort to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

Despite this, however, President Donald Trump is convinced a breakthrough is right around the corner, even though no one on his national security staff feels the same way.

The New Yorker's Susan Glasser recently talked with several former U.S. government officials and allied diplomats who have received briefings from Trump administration officials about North Korean denuclearization efforts, and they've all come away believing that leader Kim Jong-un has shown no intention of relinquishing his country's nuclear weapons.

"Their view is that North Korea is not serious about denuclearizing," one official told Glasser. "The President, however, thinks history began when he became President."

One reason the president is still optimistic about nuclear disarmament in the Korean Peninsula, reports Glasser, is that Kim keeps sending Trump letters that shower him with flattery and praise.

"Over the weekend, Trump praised Kim for sending him an encouraging letter, publicly suggesting that he was open to denuclearization by the end of Trump’s first Presidential term," Glasser writes. "On Monday, the White House announced that, in response to the 'very warm, very positive' note from Kim, Trump was now ordering his staff to plan for a second Trump-Kim summit meeting."

Read the whole report here.