North Korean media says Trump agreed to lift sanctions and provide security guarantees

When President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un sat down for a meeting Tuesday morning, no one was present except for translators. The agreement each leader signed provides some insight on the substance of the historic meeting, but there's no way to be completely sure what the two discussed.

North Korean state media is saying that Trump agreed to lift economic sanctions against the country, reports Reuters. The agreement Trump signed doesn't make any such promise.

Perhaps in an effort to make the summit look like a win for Kim, North Korea's official KCNA news agency reported that Trump promised to provide security guarantees, no strings attached. This pledge supposedly came in addition to ending the U.S.'s joint military exercises with South Korea, something Trump really did agree to. In a further boon for Kim, KCNA says that Trump only asked Kim to begin a vague "step-by-step" denuclearization process, and that Kim only agreed to it if "the U.S. side takes genuine measures for building trust."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Critics say that Trump conceded too much to Kim during the summit, like the cessation of military drills and his failure to demand that Kim improve his track record on human rights. Trump has hailed the meeting as a major success, saying he got everything he wanted from the summit — and apparently, so has Kim.