Some top congressional Democrats scolded President Trump Thursday over the collapse of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, accusing the president of amateurish and dangerous diplomacy.
House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said the president’s letter to Mr. Kim cancelling the summit “is a sad example of the petulance and shallowness of the foreign policy being pursued by this president.”
“It is another demonstration of President Trump’s treating of critical negotiations as if they were just another real estate deal,” Mr. Hoyer said. “From the beginning to the present, the dealings with North Korea have been sophomoric and without strategic or tactical merit.”
Rep. Eliot L. Engel of New York, top Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he was “absolutely flabbergasted” that Mr. Trump canceled the summit.
“You cannot have thin skin if you want to make progress with a difficult adversary such as the Kim regime,” Mr. Engel said. “Imagine how different the course of history would look if every chance for peace was scuttled because one party was too mean to the other.”
In the letter to Mr. Kim, the president said he was canceling the meeting in light of the “tremendous anger and open hostility” directed at the U.S. in recent days by North Korean officials.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York said many lawmakers had feared the summit would be “a great show that produced nothing enduring.” But he said he hopes there is still a path forward for negotiations.
“If a summit is to be reconstituted, the United States must show strength and achieve a concrete, verifiable, enduring elimination of Kim Jong-un’s nuclear capabilities,” Mr. Schumer said.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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