DPRK detente will not last if US insists on all take, no give

Frustrated there has been no tangible progress on denuclearization, the Donald Trump administration has just reached a fresh consensus with Japan and the Republic of Korea on sustaining the pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, until the latter gives up nuclear weapons.

Even amid the ostensible detente following the June 12 Singapore meeting between Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un, there was no mention of discontinuing what Trump described as a "maximum pressure" tactic. But what US State Secretary Mike Pompeo reiterated in his latest phone conversations with his Japanese and ROK counterparts is a clear indication of the White House's belated recognition that denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula is not as simple as it once believed.

Trump entered into personal engagement with his counterpart in Pyongyang assuming his predecessors were all inferior; he, on the other hand, had a magic wand. It is good that the US president has finally come to terms with the reality, and he has conceded that the matter is complicated, something that will be more conducive to him making informed decisions about how the denuclearization process is to be approached.