CIA report: North Korea is not planning to give up its nukes, but knows another way to Trump's heart
A new CIA report says that North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons easily or quickly, but it is considering opening a Western hamburger joint in Pyongyang as a show of goodwill, three U.S. national security officials told NBC News.
"Everyone knows they are not going to denuclearize," one official said. The report was circulated earlier this month, just a few days before President Trump announced he was canceling his June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. The report did not say what burger franchise might pop up in Pyongyang, but it called the idea a nod to Trump's love of fast food restaurants.
Per the report, it's believed Kim may offer limited American investment in the country, NBC News reports, and the U.S. and South Korea will likely promise agricultural development and food delivery, possibly through the United Nations. Because North Korea is so reclusive and the U.S. doesn't have many intelligence sources there, the analysis is based on information at low or medium confidence. "This is essentially some very smart analysts offering their very best guesses," one intelligence official told NBC News.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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