A Step Back Or Forward in Hanoi?

All negotiations face setbacks. In most instances these breakdowns happen at the working level rather than between leaders as occurred in Hanoi.

In negotiating problems as intractable as the dismantlement of North Korea's weapons programs, setbacks are likely, but need not preclude a successful outcome if the proper groundwork is laid in advance. Something that is more challenging in the current top-down process between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.

Of course, as the experience of the six-party talks demonstrates, not all negotiations will necessarily lead to success either.

However, the early indications are that some progress was made in narrowing differences. Both sides have also been relatively restrained in their comments after the summit. North Korea has suggested it will not resume testing and the U.S. and South Korea have maintained their suspension of major joint military exercises, indicating a desire on both sides not to close the door on future talks.

The talks, perhaps unsurprisingly, stalled over sanctions, but each side may have approached the summit with unrealistic expectations. For months Pyongyang has insisted that dismantlement must be coupled with sanctions relief.

In Hanoi, North Korea put forward a proposal that called for the United States to agree to the removal of the five most recent U.N. sanctions resolutions in exchange for the dismantlement of its nuclear production facilities at Yongbyon, though not all facilities at the location.

While capping North Korea's ability to make new fissile materials at Yongbyon, the deal would have left North Korea with its existing weapons stockpile and production facilities at other locations still intact, while asking the United States to lift a significant majority of the economic sanctions on North Korea.

This would have risked locking in place North Korea's status as a de facto nuclear weapons state and removing nearly all of the U.S. leverage in the negotiations going forward. This was never an offer the United States would be able to accept.

Similarly, Trump maintained his conviction that he could convince Kim to go "big" and agree to a deal that would lift all of the sanctions in exchange for North Korea dismantling all of its weapons and production facilities, including those outside of Yongbyon. Essentially an offer North Korea has consistently declined over the years.

If the offer in Hanoi was Kim's opening offer rather than the best that North Korea can do, there is...