WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump credits his accord with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un with saving tens of millions of people from nuclear war. Now he just has to get everyone else on board.
Frustrated with lukewarm backing from congressional Republicans, criticism from Democratic opponents and skepticism from allies and the media, Trump made a stop Friday on the North Lawn of the White House to promote the nuclear deal that critics have criticized as vague and lacking in clear objectives.
The surprise appearance on “Fox & Friends,” followed by a combative round of questions with reporters, came two days after Trump returned from Singapore expecting a hero’s welcome and tweeting that the world could “sleep well.” Trump — who has long pitched himself as a master dealmaker — feels the agreement represents a radical step toward solving an intractable foreign policy problem and has been publicly and privately grumbling that not everyone agrees.
Trump’s frustrations are all the more notable now during the honeymoon phase of the deal, when a triumphant cloud of goodwill has yet to be tempered by reality. The U.S. goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization, even in the most optimistic case, will likely take years — and that’s assuming North Korea won’t violate the accord, as it has every previous nuclear agreement.