What went right in Singapore

In the short- to medium-term, President Trump's summit with Kim Jong Un has succeeded in one thing: bringing us all back from the brink

President Trump and Kim Jong Un meet in Singapore, with the American and North Korean flags in red white and blue behind them.
(Image credit: Saul Loeb / Getty Images)

The optics of the summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un were undeniably poor. To see the American flag flying next to the symbol of a Stalinist museum is enraging. So too was it infuriating to hear a murderous dictator exalted as some kind of champion of his people's freedom and prosperity.

The substance of the summit was also hardly worth bragging about. The president is characteristically overselling both the promises listed in the communique and the reliability of the North Korean dictator as a negotiating partner. North Korea has broken many similar vows to denuclearize before.

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W. James Antle III

W. James Antle III is the politics editor of the Washington Examiner, the former editor of The American Conservative, and author of Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?.