The Room Where It Happened

by John Bolton;

  What to do next? Kelly said he thought Trump was ready for the possibility nothing would happen in Singapore. I thought that was optimistic. We talked about establishing a timeline to show we didn’t have forever to play this out, all while North Korea was still developing and/or manufacturing nuclear components and ballistic missiles. We broke up around 3:45, and I returned to my office. To my surprise, at around 4:10, my phone rang and a voice said, “This is the Camp David switchboard,” the first time I had ever heard that greeting. The operator said the President wanted to speak to me. “The letter was very friendly, don’t you think?” he asked, and I agreed, although I also said it was “nonsubstantive.” “It’s a process,” said Trump. “I understand that now. We’ll just have a meeting to get to know each other, and then we’ll see what happens. It will take longer than I first thought.” I stressed my view that neither sanctions relief nor an “end of the Korea War” declaration should come until complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization was concluded, which was what the Administration’s policy always had been. He seemed to be amenable to this analysis and advice. I said that having the discussions play out over time was acceptable, with one major qualification. Time was almost always on the side of the proliferator, and simply running the clock had long been a central part of North Korea’s strategy. Our time was not indefinite, which he seemed to accept. “It was pretty good,” he concluded, and the call ended. In fact, Trump got precisely what he wanted from the press; the headlines were, effectively, “June 12 meeting in Singapore back on.”

  Over the weekend, I briefed Chung about the Kim Yong Chol meeting, and he said Moon was just delighted by the outcome. Unknowingly echoing Trump, Chung also said that we were facing “a process,” not just one meeting in Singapore. That was exactly what I had feared their reaction would be. Meanwhile, at the bilateral US–North Korea talks in the DMZ, the North rejected our draft approach to Singapore. The State Department, faced with rejection, wanted to offer a compromise, in effect saying, “You don’t like that one? How about this one?” And if the North didn’t like “this one,” the State negotiators would probably offer them “another one,” all the while, in reality, negotiating with themselves to see if they could produce a smile from the North Koreans. I had seen it many times before. Fortunately, Pompeo agreed with my view that we should produce no new drafts but wait for Pyongyang to respond to ours. The North finally commented verbally on our draft and said they would provide written comments the next day. Amazing how that works. I also pushed to get the negotiations moved to Singapore, to get the North Koreans out of their DMZ comfort zone. After a struggle with the US delegation more than with the North, we did so. Even Chung agreed it was time this moveable feast arrived in Singapore.

  I then decided to confront the growing press speculation I was being cut out of North Korea matters and would not go to Singapore. I told Kelly, “I’ve been around this track a few times before,” and I didn’t think my exclusion from the Kim Yong Chol meeting was accidental. Kelly said he was “surprised” I wasn’t in the room when he walked into the Oval with Kim in tow. I explained what Pence had said and why we had gone to the VP’s office without my asking Trump directly why we wouldn’t be included. Kelly said he hadn’t expected to be in the meeting either, but Trump had asked him to stay. I recounted the speculation I would not be going to Singapore, which, if true, meant I couldn’t do my job and would accordingly resign. Kelly said, “I wouldn’t have expected you to say anything else,” and said he would talk to Trump, which I accepted as a first step. Later that morning, Kelly reported that Trump had “meant nothing” by not having me in the Kim Yong Chol meeting and that I would be in all the Singapore meetings. That satisfied me for the moment.

  Immediately after his lunch with Trump that day, June 4, Mattis came in to discuss the Trump-Kim summit, stressing he was worried about the squishiness of our position on the North’s nuclear program, and asked, given the press speculation, if I was going to Singapore. When I said “Yes,” Mattis said, “Good,” emphatically, explaining he was sure, in his assessment, that Japan and several other key states in the region all supported my position not to lift sanctions before complete denuclearization, which showed the extent of backing for our approach. I wondered at this conversation, because, for the first time, I sensed Mattis was uncertain and nervous. I didn’t understand why until Ayers told me a few days later that Trump had spent much of the lunch with Mattis, according to what he had heard, beating up on him—for, among other things, being a Democrat—in “ways no one had ever seen before.” Mattis had to know what that meant. This was something to watch.

  On Tuesday, June 5, Pompeo and I had lunch with Trump, one important topic of which was Moon’s continuing desire to be present in Singapore, which was a topic that had already broken out into the Asian press because of leaks in South Korea.23 Both Pompeo and I explained to our counterparts in Seoul what our thinking was. The bad news at lunch was Trump’s fascination with the prospect he could say he had ended the Korean War. I didn’t mind selling that concession to the North at some point, but I thought we certainly shouldn’t give it away for free, which Trump was ready to do. It simply didn’t matter to him. He thought it was just a gesture, a huge media score, and didn’t see any international consequences. After lunch Pompeo and I walked to my office. We decided we had to develop something to offer as an alternative, but no good ideas popped up. I knew that Japan would be particularly disturbed that we might make this concession, so I couldn’t wait to hear what Yachi would say to me during yet another Washington visit that afternoon.

  I also took the opportunity to ask Pompeo if he had some issue with me, as media stories were alleging. He said flatly that he did not, recalling how, just in the past few days, I had helped him stop an errant US Ambassador from making an appointment with Trump directly without seeking permission from him. Pompeo, at the time, had said, “Bless you, John,” at which we both laughed. Whether even at this early stage there was more to it than that, I can’t say, but there didn’t appear to be. When Pompeo and I had breakfast in the Ward Room the next morning (Mattis being out of the country yet again), we discussed what to extract from North Korea in return for an “end of war” communiqué, including perhaps a baseline declaration of their nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs. I doubted the North would agree, or agree on any of our other ideas, but it might at least prevent a gratuitous US concession “ending” the Korean War.

  Later that day, Prime Minister Abe stopped briefly in Washington on his way to the annual G7 summit, held that year in Charlevoix, Canada, to press Trump one more time not to give away the store. Abe stressed that the North Koreans “are survivors,” saying, “They have staked their lives on their system. They are very tough, very shrewd politicians… if they think this is business as usual, they will go back to their old ways.” Although the two leaders had a good conversation on Pyongyang, trade issues were not so sunny, with long riffs by Trump on the unfair trade deficits, especially since the US had agreed to defend Japan: “We defend you, by treaty. We defend you, but not the other way around. We had bad negotiators, right, John?” he asked, looking at me. “We’ll defend you without a treaty,” Trump continued, but said, “It’s not fair.”

  * * *

  With that, our attention turned from meeting Kim Jong Un to attending the G7. It turned out the road to Singapore was paved with the ruins of Charlevoix. The G7 meetings and similar international gatherings had a rhyme and reason at one point in history, and at times do good work, but in many respects, they have simply become self-licking ice-cream cones. They’re there because they’re there.

  On June 8, Trump was over an hour late leaving the White House on Marine One for Andrews. Air Force One landed at the Bagotville Canadian Air Force base, from which we helicoptered to the summit location, the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu in La Malbaie, Quebec, still about an hour late. It seemed like a nice location, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Not that it m
attered; as usual, we only saw the inside of the spacious hotel where all seven heads of government and their delegations stayed. Trump arrived fixated on inviting Russia to rejoin the G7, from which it was expelled in 2014 after invading and annexing Crimea. He found an ally in Italy’s new Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, on the job less than a week before arriving at Charlevoix.24 Conte was in office because of an unusual left-right populist coalition that made Italian politics some of the most unstable in Europe. The G7 opening plenary sessions were contentious, with Trump under siege for his trade policies, until he fired back: the G7 should abolish all tariffs, all non-tariff trade barriers, and all subsidies. That subdued the Europeans in particular, who had no intention of doing any such thing. The discussion really showed the rampant hypocrisy of international trade talks, where free trade was invariably good for everyone else but not for favored domestic sectors, particularly farmers in places like France and Japan, not to mention the US and Canada.

  Trump had bilateral meetings with Canada’s Trudeau and France’s Macron, where the conversations on bilateral trade were far from amicable. Trump didn’t really like either Trudeau or Macron, but he tolerated them, mockingly crossing swords with them in meetings, kidding on the straight. I assume they understood what he was doing, and they responded in kind, playing along because it suited their larger interests not to be in a permanent tiff with the US President. Trump rightly complained to both that China did not play by the applicable rules in international trade and had gotten away with it far too long. With Canada, Trump wanted the new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ratified, which would largely satisfy his trade objectives with Mexico and Canada. With France, Trump’s real target was the EU. As usual, he trotted out that old stand-by, “The EU is worse than China, only smaller.” Trump also complained about China and many other WTO members that called themselves “developing” in order to take advantage of more favorable trade treatment. This was only one of many areas where the WTO could stand thorough reform, which the other G7 states professed to support but never quite got around to. Trump ended the Macron meeting by saying, “You know, John’s been preparing all his life for this job. He was a genius on Fox TV, you know, and now he’s got to make hard decisions, which he didn’t have to do on TV, but he’s doing a great job.” The French got a kick out of that. So did I for that matter.

  In true G7 fashion, there was then an elaborate dinner for the leaders, followed by a Cirque du Soleil performance. I skipped all the fun to continue preparations for Singapore. Unfortunately, also in true G7 fashion, the “sherpas,” the senior officials responsible for the substance of the summit, were gridlocked on the traditional final communiqué. The Europeans loved playing games with these communiqués, forcing the US into the unpleasant choice of either compromising on core policy principles or appearing “isolated” from the others. For most professional diplomats, being isolated is worse than death, so compromising principles looked good by comparison. Another fate the Europeans couldn’t contemplate was not having a final communiqué at all, because if there was no final statement, maybe the meeting never took place, and how terrible that would be for mankind. Therefore, instead of enjoying Cirque du Soleil, the other leaders began harassing Trump, complaining that the US sherpa was being “hard-line.” The dinner had also been contentious, with the other leaders opposing Trump’s ill-conceived idea of bringing Russia back into the G7, and the mood had grown somewhat churlish. Since the G7 was originally conceived in the 1970s as a forum to discuss economic issues, most of the work fell to National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow. The US sherpa and his international economics staff reported jointly to Kudlow and me.

  Trump should have said, “Leave it to the sherpas, and let them work all night.” He concluded, however, since he was a “closer,” he and the other leaders would gather in one of the lounges and negotiate themselves. By this point, Kudlow had joined the group, with the aim of being friends with the European leaders on international economic issues. Kelly, sensing trouble, sent for me at about ten thirty p.m. As I was walking in, Kelly was walking out, saying, “This is a disaster,” which, after a few minutes of observation, was clear. The leaders were on plush couches and chairs, with several dozen aides hovering around. No good could come of this. Trump himself seemed very tired; in fairness, so were many others, but not Macron and Trudeau, and certainly not their aides, who were pushing policy agendas contrary to ours. This was déjà vu for me; I had engaged in scores of these slow-moving debacles over the years. I tried to judge whether Trump really wanted a G7 communiqué and would therefore make more concessions, or whether he was indifferent. I couldn’t tell, but Trump (who had not troubled to prepare himself) didn’t really have much of an idea what was at stake. By the time I arrived, Trump and Kudlow had already given away a number of hard-fought positions. I intervened on one point against a German idea on the WTO, but no one really seemed to understand what was at issue, reflecting that it was not Trump alone who didn’t grasp the specifics of what the sherpas were debating. Finally, at about eleven o’clock, the leaders agreed the sherpas should continue on their own, which they dutifully did until five thirty a.m. Saturday. I would have said, “Why bother? Let’s just not have a communiqué,” which might have brought Europe and Canada up short. But as Jim Baker would have reminded me, I was not “the guy who got elected.”

  I found Kudlow and our sherpa at about 7:20 a.m., and they confirmed not much had happened overnight. Because Trump woke late, however, we did not have a briefing session before G7 events resumed. I still didn’t mind leaving Charlevoix with no communiqué, but I wanted to be sure Trump understood the implications. We never had that conversation. Instead, I suggested we advance the time of our departure from Canada to ten thirty a.m. in order to force a decision. We were already leaving well before the G7’s scheduled end so we could arrive Sunday evening in Singapore at a reasonable hour, and I was just suggesting leaving a bit earlier. My theory was that once out of the summit’s hothouse atmosphere, Trump could decide more calmly how to handle the communiqué. Kelly and Kudlow agreed. Trump was already bored, tired, and late for a breakfast on gender equality. Upon hearing of his accelerated departure, the Europeans, who had other ideas, descended before we could spirit him from the room. The now-famous picture (taken by Germany) shows we didn’t get him out in time:

  It felt like Custer’s Last Stand. The whole thing was a waste of time, but on and on the discussions went, with Kudlow and me doing most of the negotiating. We picked up nickels and dimes (eliminating a European provision that Iran was in compliance with the nuclear deal, which it was not). But basically all we did was produce carbon emissions that simply contributed to global warming, which the Europeans professed to be concerned about. Trump was still bored, but we agreed on a final document, and off we went for a press conference before boarding Marine One and heading back to Bagotville air force base, leaving Kudlow behind to hold the fort. We joined up with Pompeo, and Air Force One left for Singapore, twelve hours ahead in time zones, via NATO’s Souda Bay base on Crete for a refueling stop. We were done with the G7, I thought.

  * * *

  Trump was delighted to be on his way to meet Kim Jong Un. Once we were airborne, I explained to Pompeo what happened at Charlevoix. I tried to nap to adjust to Singapore time and awoke on Sunday Greek time, shortly before landing at Souda Bay. Except for POTUS, Air Force One is not designed for luxury travel, with no lie-flat seats, and many people simply stretched out on the floor. While I was asleep, Trump had fired off two tweets withdrawing support for the G7 communiqué, which was unprecedented. He had had Pompeo awakened some hours earlier to come to his office, where he was throwing a fit about Trudeau’s using his closing press conference to score points against him. Trump had been gracious to Trudeau in his press event, and he was infuriated Trudeau had not reciprocated. The communiqué was collateral damage. No one rousted me, and when I did wake, I obviously couldn’t recall the tweets, which predictably dominated
the news until we landed in Singapore. I called Kudlow to find out what had happened, and he said things had ended in good order but for Trudeau’s press conference. The immediate issue was what Kudlow should say on the Sunday talk shows, and Trump’s direction was clear: “Just go after Trudeau. Don’t knock the others. Trudeau’s a ‘behind your back’ guy.” Trump also wanted to invoke the coming Kim Jong Un meeting, saying that rejecting the G7 communiqué showed “we don’t take any shit,” a point definitely worth making. There was no doubt Trump wanted Kudlow and Peter Navarro (another Assistant to the President, whom I briefed) unleashed, as well as Lindsey Graham (whom I also briefed). Navarro said “there [was] a special place in hell” for Trudeau because of the way he had treated Trump; Navarro was criticized, but it was just what Trump wanted.