Kim Jong Un needs someone to pick up his hotel tab at the summit with Trump

(Image credit: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/The Associated Press)

President Trump says his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12 is back on — for real, because "we're getting along" and the meeting will be "very successful" — which means it's time to figure out Kim's housing arrangement.

Thanks to North Korea's self-isolation and a broad array of international sanctions, the Kim regime is not exactly flush with cash. For the young dictator to stay during the summit in the presidential suite at his hotel of choice, a historic five-star property called The Fullerton, Kim will need about $6,000 nightly. Add in the cost of housing the rest of his team, and there is no way Kim can pick up the tab.

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The question of who will pay instead is diplomatically tricky. While the "United States is open to covering the costs," The Washington Post reports, sources say "Pyongyang may view a U.S. payment as insulting." American organizers are instead planning to ask Singapore, already playing host, to cover the Kim delegation's costs.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.