President Donald Trump said Sunday a US team was in North Korea to plan a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, raising expectations that the on-off-on meeting would indeed take place.
The State Department said earlier that a team was in Panmunjom, which straddles the border inside the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, separating the North and South Korea. One can cross the border simply by stepping across a painted line, but moving beyond several footsteps into the North at Panmunjom would be rare for US officials.
Trump withdrew from a planned June 12 Singapore summit with Kim last Thursday, but quickly announced that it could get back on track. His tweet Sunday afternoon, which offered praise for the longtime US adversary, was the latest signal that his concerns about the North’s stance toward the summit had been allayed.
“Our United States team has arrived in North Korea to make arrangements for the Summit between Kim Jong Un and myself,” he tweeted. “I truly believe North Korea has brilliant potential and will be a great economic and financial Nation one day. Kim Jong Un agrees with me on this. It will happen!”
South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, gave details about his surprise meeting Saturday with Kim in the Panmunjom truce village, saying Kim had committed to sitting down with Trump and to a “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tapped veteran American diplomat Sung Kim to handle pre-summit negotiations. On a separate but complementary track was the CIA team Pompeo set up last year when he headed the spy agency. And on a third track was a White House logistical group sent to Singapore on Sunday to prepare in case the summit takes place. It was led by Joe Hagin, White House deputy chief of staff for operations.
Kim, the US ambassador to the Philippines, also served as ambassador to South Korea and was part of the US negotiating team that last held substantive denuclearization talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration in 2005.
The Korean leaders’ second summit in a month saw bear hugs and broad smiles. But their quickly arranged meeting Saturday appeared to highlight a sense of urgency on both sides of the world’s most heavily armed border.
The talks, which Moon said Kim Jong Un requested, capped a whirlwind 24 hours of diplomatic back and forth. They allowed Moon to push for a US-North Korean summit that he sees as the best way to ease animosity that had some fearing a war last year.
Kim may see a meeting with Trump as necessary to easing pressure from crushing sanctions and to winning security assurances in a region surrounded by enemies.
Moon told reporters that Kim “again made clear his commitment to a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Moon added that Kim said he’s willing to cooperate to end confrontation and work toward peace for the sake of the successful summit with Trump.
Moon said he told Kim that Trump has a “firm resolve” to end hostile relations with North Korea and initiate economic cooperation if Kim implements “complete denuclearization.”
“What Kim is unclear about is that he has concerns about whether his country can surely trust the United States over its promise to end hostile relations (with North Korea) and provide a security guarantee if they do denuclearization,” Moon said.
“During the South Korea-US summit, President Trump said the US is willing to clearly put an end to hostile relations (between the US and North Korea) and help (the North) achieve economic prosperity if North Korea conducts denuclearization,” he said.
Kim, in a dispatch issued by the North’s state-run news service earlier Sunday, “expressed his fixed will on the historic (North Korea)-US summit talks.” During Saturday’s inter-Korean summit, the Korean leaders agreed to “positively cooperate with each other as ever to improve (North Korea)-US relations and establish (a) mechanism for permanent and durable peace.”
They agreed to have their top officials meet again June 1. Moon said military generals and Red Cross officials from the Koreas will also meet separately to discuss how to ease military tensions and resume reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.
Saturday’s Korean summit came hours after South Korea expressed relief over revived talks for a Trump-Kim meeting.
Despite repeated references to “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” by the North, it remains unclear whether Kim will ever agree to fully abandon his nuclear arsenal.
The North has previously used the term to demand the United States pull out its 28,500 troops in South Korea and withdraw its so-called nuclear umbrella security commitment to South Korea and Japan. The North hasn’t openly repeated those same demands after Kim’s sudden outreach to Seoul and Washington.
Moon has insisted Kim can be persuaded to abandon his nuclear facilities, materials and bombs in a verifiable and irreversible way in exchange for credible security and economic guarantees. Moon said Sunday that the North’s disarmament could still be a difficult process even if Pyongyang, Washington and Seoul don’t differ over what “complete denuclearization” of the peninsula means.
Before he canceled the summit, Trump did not rule out an incremental approach that would provide incentives along the way to the North.
Following an unusually provocative 2017 in which Kim’s engineers tested a purported thermonuclear warhead and three long-range missiles theoretically capable of striking mainland US cities, the North Korean leader has engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent months. He has had the summits with Moon and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as well as two meetings with Pompeo.
US team in North Korea to plan Trump-Kim summit
US team in North Korea to plan Trump-Kim summit
- “Our United States team has arrived in North Korea to make arrangements for the Summit between Kim Jong Un and myself,” Donald Trump tweeted
- Trump has a “firm resolve” to end hostile relations with North Korea and initiate economic cooperation if Kim implements “complete denuclearization”
US House Republicans seek to kill EV tax credit, loan program
- The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs
WASHINGTON: Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Monday proposed killing the electric vehicle tax credit and repealing fuel efficiency rules designed to prod automakers into building more zero-emission vehicles as part of a broad-based tax reform bill.
The proposal, which is set for a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday, would repeal a $7,500 new-vehicle tax credit and a $4,000 used-vehicle credit on Dec. 31, although it would maintain the new-vehicle credit for an additional year for automakers that have not yet sold 200,000 EVs.
The president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, Genevieve Cullen, criticized the proposal, saying that plans “to abandon US leadership in energy innovation by gutting federal investment in electrification are catastrophically short-sighted.”
The proposal, she said, would deliver “an enormous market advantage” to competitors like China and threaten US manufacturing and jobs.
The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs.
The proposal leaves in place a key battery production tax credit for automakers and battery makers, but a new provision would bar the credit for vehicles produced with components made by some Chinese companies or under a license agreement with Chinese firms.
The provision, which would take effect in 2027, could bar credits for cars powered by Chinese battery technology licensed by American companies such as Ford Motor or Tesla .
House Republicans also propose to kill a loan program that supports the manufacture of certain advanced technology vehicles. It would rescind any unobligated funding and rescind corporate average fuel economy standards and greenhouse gas emission rules for 2027 and beyond. That portion will be taken up by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Among outstanding loans finalized in President Joe Biden’s last weeks in office are $9.63 billion to a joint venture of Ford Motor and South Korean battery maker SK On for construction of three battery manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Kentucky; $7.54 billion to a joint venture of Chrysler-parent Stellantis and Samsung SDI for two EV lithium-ion battery plants in Indiana; and $6.57 billion to Rivian for a plant in Georgia to begin building smaller, less expensive EVs in 2028.
US military replaces B-2 bombers that were sent amid Middle East tensions
- Experts say that this had put the B-2s in a position to operate in the Middle East
WASHINGTON: The US military is replacing its B-2 bombers with another type of bomber at a base in the Indo-Pacific that was seen as being in an ideal location to operate in the Middle East, US officials told Reuters on Monday. The Pentagon deployed as many as six B-2 bombers in March to a US-British military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, amid a US bombing campaign in Yemen and mounting tensions with Iran.
Experts say that this had put the B-2s, which have stealth technology and are equipped to carry the heaviest US bombs and nuclear weapons, in a position to operate in the Middle East.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the B-2 bombers were being replaced by B-52 bombers.
The Pentagon said it did not comment on force posture adjustments as a matter of policy.
Fresh talks between Iranian and US negotiators to resolve disputes over Tehran’s nuclear program ended in Oman on Sunday, with further negotiations planned. The fourth round of talks took place ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned visit to the Middle East. Trump, who has threatened military action against Iran if diplomacy fails, has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since returning to the White House in January.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment program or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among what the officials have called “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks. Additionally, Trump announced last week that a deal had been reached to stop bombing Yemen’s Houthi group. The B-2 bombers had been used to carry out strikes against the Iran-backed group.
UN chief warns of ‘painful’ reforms, including staff cuts
- The proposed restructuring within the Secretariat includes merging units from the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) with the Department of Peace Operations (DPO)
UNITED NATIONS, United States: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Monday said reforming the global body will require “painful” changes, including staff reductions, to improve efficiency and deal with chronic budget constraints exacerbated by Trump administration policies.
In March, the secretary-general launched the UN80 initiative to streamline operations.
“Our shared goal has always been to make our organization more efficient, to simplify procedures, eliminate overlaps, and enhance transparency and accountability,” Guterres said Monday during an update to member states.
“The liquidity crisis we now face is not new. But today’s financial and political situation adds even greater urgency to our efforts.”
He warned “we know that some of these changes will be painful for our UN family.”
The proposed restructuring within the Secretariat includes merging units from the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) with the Department of Peace Operations (DPO).
“I believe we’ll be able to eliminate 20 percent of the posts of the two departments,” he said, adding that the level of reduction outlined for DPPA and DPO “must be seen as a reference for the wider UN80 exercise.”
Guterres also raised the possibility of relocating positions from New York and Geneva to less expensive cities.
Member states will have to decide on their own changes.
The internal workload has also stretched the capacity of the UN system “beyond reason,” Guterres said.
“It is as if we have allowed the formalism and quantity of reports and meetings to become ends in themselves. The measure of success is not the volume of reports we generate or the number of meetings we convene,” he said.
Guterres called on member states to make tough decisions.
“Many of you have agreed that this must be the moment to be bold and ambitious. That is what our Organization needs — and that is what our times demand,” he said.
“Make no mistake — uncomfortable and difficult decisions lie ahead. It may be easier — and even tempting — to ignore them or kick the can down the road. But that road is a dead end.”
In a memo seen recently by AFP, an internal working group in charge of the UN80 initiative suggested some major reforms, including merging UN agencies.
Guterres did not directly address those changes but indicated that “clusters” working on similar issues would propose reforms, and potentially some structural changes.
Trump administration welcomes 59 white South Africans as refugees
- South Africa’s government says the US allegations that the white minority Afrikaners are being persecuted are “completely false,” the result of misinformation and an inaccurate view of the country
DULLES, Virginia: The Trump administration on Monday welcomed a group of 59 white South Africans as refugees, saying they face discrimination and violence at home, which the country’s government strongly denies.
The decision to admit the Afrikaners also has raised questions from refugee advocates about why they were admitted when the Trump administration has suspended efforts to resettle people fleeing war and persecution who have gone through years of vetting.
Many in the group from South Africa — including toddlers and other small children, even one walking barefoot in pajamas — held small American flags as two officials welcomed them to the United States in an airport hangar outside Washington. The South Africans were then leaving on other flights to various US destinations.
A group of 49 Afrikaners had been expected, but the State Department said Monday that 59 had arrived.
“I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said.
President Donald Trump told reporters earlier Monday that he’s admitting them as refugees because of the “genocide that’s taking place.” He said that in post-apartheid South Africa, white farmers are “being killed” and he plans to address the issue with South African leadership next week.
That characterization has been strongly disputed by South Africa’s government, experts and even the Afrikaner group AfriForum, which says farm attacks are not being taken seriously by the government.
South Africa’s government says the US allegations that the white minority Afrikaners are being persecuted are “completely false,” the result of misinformation and an inaccurate view of the country. It cited the fact that Afrikaners are among the richest and most successful people in the country.
The view from South Africa
Speaking at a business conference in Ivory Coast, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said Monday that he spoke with Trump recently and told him his administration had been fed false information by groups who were casting white people as victims because of efforts to right the historical wrongs of colonialism and South Africa’s previous apartheid system of forced racial segregation, which oppressed the Black majority.
“I had a conversation with President Trump on the phone and he asked me, ‘What’s going on down there?’ and I told him that what you are being told by those people who are opposed to transformation back in South Africa is not true,” Ramaphosa said.
Afrikaners make up South Africa’s largest white group and were the leaders of the apartheid government, which brutally enforced racial segregation for nearly 50 years before ending it in 1994. While South Africa has been largely successful in reconciling its many races, tensions between some Black political parties and some Afrikaner groups have remained.
The Trump administration has falsely claimed white South Africans are having their land taken away by the government under a new expropriation law that promotes “racially discriminatory property confiscation.” No land has been expropriated.
Trump has promoted the allegation that white farmers in South Africa are being killed on a large scale as far back as 2018 during his first term.
Conservative commentators have promoted the allegation about a genocide against white farmers, and South African-born Trump ally Elon Musk has posted on social media that some politicians in the country are “actively promoting white genocide.”
South Africa has extremely high levels of violent crime, and white farmers have been killed in rural Afrikaner communities. It has been a problem for decades. The government condemns those killings but says they are part of the country’s problems with crime.
“There is no data at all that backs that there is persecution of white South Africans or white Afrikaners in particular who are farmers,” South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said Monday. “White farmers get affected by crime just like any other South Africans who do get affected by crime. So this is not factual, it is without basis.”
Trump administration says white South Africans have been targeted
Landau said many of those who arrived Monday experienced “threatening invasions of their homes, their farms and a real lack of interest or success of the government in doing anything about this situation.”
They all had met stringent vetting standards, including the ability to assimilate into American culture, Landau said. Critics of the refugee program suggest that refugees aren’t properly vetted, though supporters say they go through some of the strictest vetting of anyone seeking to come to America.
Trump indefinitely suspended the refugee resettlement program — which historically had widespread bipartisan support — on his first day in office. A month later, he announced a plan to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees.
Supporters of the refugee program question how the administration can justify admitting this small group while keeping out others from conflict zones around the world.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, called it an effort to “rewrite history.”
“The Administration must clarify why these individuals qualify for refugee status and resettlement in the US and why they have been prioritized over refugees like Afghans, Burmese Rohingya and Sudanese who have fled their homes due to conflict and persecution,” she said in a statement Monday.
Who can come from South Africa under Trump’s order
According to the US Embassy in South Africa, applicants have to be South African citizens who are of Afrikaner ethnicity or a member of a racial minority, and they have to be able to show a history of or a fear of persecution.
Afrikaners, who are the descendants of mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers, number around 2.7 million among South Africa’s population of 62 million, which is more than 80 percent Black.
The US refugee program was created by Congress in 1980, and groups have sued to restart it after Trump’s halt.
Traditionally, to qualify as a refugee, applicants must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Refugees are distinct from asylum-seekers because refugees must be outside of the US to qualify.
A network of resettlement agencies generally helps refugees settle in their new homes, and they get 90 days of federal assistance for things like rent. The Episcopal Church’s migration service, however, is refusing a directive from the federal government to help resettle the white South Africans, citing the church’s longstanding “commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.”
Five European defense ministers to meet in Rome on Friday
- Defense ministers to discuss support for Ukraine
- They will also discuss ways to strengthen European defense
ROME: Defense ministers from five major European military powers will meet in Italy on Friday to discuss support for Ukraine, the host country said.
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto will host his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany and Poland, his ministry said Monday in a statement.
The announcement came after Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready for direct talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Istanbul on Thursday.
US President Donald Trump said Monday he was “thinking” about flying to Turkiye for the talks but Russia did not indicate whether Putin would take part.
Aside from Ukraine, the European ministers will also discuss ways to strengthen European defense — a priority for them following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The five will hold a joint press conference at the end of their meeting at 1245 GMT on Friday, the Italian statement said.
Kyiv and its European allies called on Saturday for a 30-day ceasefire starting Monday — calling it a prerequisite for direct peace talks between the two countries.
Moscow rejected their call on Monday, despite threats of “massive sanctions” in case of refusal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during his daily briefing that “the language of ultimatums is unacceptable to Russia.”
He later said that Moscow wanted “serious” negotiations to achieve peace in the conflict, which has left tens of thousands of people dead.
