I've been skeptical of Trump's outreach to Kim Jong Un. I do think North Korea wants nukes and is unlikely to disarm:
Kim Jong Un has once again conducted a test launch, this time of the 300mm multiple rocket launcher (MRL) system, just six days after testing the KN-23 missile and two months after North Korea’s initial violations, on May 4 and May 9, of the testing moratorium that began in November 2017 after Pyongyang’s last intercontinental ballistic missile test. Testing the 300mm MRL and the KN-23 enhances Pyongyang’s ability to strike at key air bases in the Republic of Korea (ROK), but the tests’ strategic significance lies in their expression of Kim’s confidence that the U.S. and ROK are unwilling to hold him accountable because their desire for negotiations far exceeds his own.
In addition to worrying that North Korea is buying time to go nuclear, I worry that talks buy time for North Korea to proliferate their nuclear assets. Eventually we get to a point where striking North Korea is too risky because we become less sure we can get everything in a time frame short enough to reduce the threat of escalation to general war.
But I will say I've never read a clear indication of what weapons North Korea has. I keep reading things that imply scores of nuclear weapons, but I suspect facts are being fudged to make the potential for scores of weapons into actual weapons.
So diplomacy is failing. Although I don't rule out the possibility that it could work out.
And I do admit that the strenuous high profile presidential diplomatic effort checks the box on the "last option" list prior to hammering North Korea if necessary.
Unless the real objective of the president's diplomatic activity and high profile praise for Kim's diplomacy is just a higher level of engagement to soothe higher levels of sanctions in what is essentially a policy of talk, talk, die, die:
Personally, I simply want the talks to drag on while North Korea implodes. Every month the talks go on, the more North Korea's military machine deteriorates. Each month, North Koreans head toward the point when fear is outweighed by desperation.
Yet the talks keep the North Koreans hoping for a respite to their woes if we hand them the big check again. This hope keeps them from launching a desperate war while they can do some damage and hopefully get a frightenend West to agree to shovel money at them. The West has capitulated before and Pyongyang expects us to break again.
So keep talking and let North Korea walk if they get upset about us bringing up other issues. Every month they have a weaker option of going to war. And if they go to war, all bets are off on regime change. Nobody's stopping at the DMZ this time if the North launches a war.
We've been kicking the figurative North Korea nuclear can down the peninsula for a long time. We seem like we've run out of peninsula.
