Joel Wit, a former US official who helped negotiate the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea in Geneva, speaks at a seminar on the Stimson Middle in Washington, DC, on Oct. 28, 2025. (Kim Received-chul/Hankyoreh)
Joel Wit, one of many working-level architects behind the 1994 Agreed Framework between the US and North Korea, thinks {that a} assembly between US President Donald Trump and North Korean chief Kim Jong-un could be “even riskier in the present day” than it was in 2019.
Wit, who’s at the moment a distinguished fellow on the Stimson Middle, additionally argued that the prevailing view is that denuclearization is “simply not going to be within the playing cards,” and argued that “threat discount” presents a extra practical technique.
The remark got here at a promotional occasion in Washington, DC, on Oct. 28 for Wit’s new e book, “Fallout: The Inside Story of America’s Failure to Disarm North Korea,” based mostly on interviews of over 300 individuals performed throughout a interval of over 30 years, together with North Koreans, Individuals, and numerous authorities officers.
In the course of the occasion, Wit warned that if Trump meets Kim once more, the North Korean chief may make “riskier” asks, corresponding to demanding the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula, and steered {that a} snap summit with out the correct preparations may very well be a “catastrophe.”
Wit stated there was a excessive probability that Trump may ignore his advisers and push for a summit with Kim, considering that he is aware of the North Korean chief finest, calling it a “significant issue” that there is no such thing as a one like Stephen Biegun or Mike Pompeo this time to pump the brakes.
Biegun was US deputy secretary of state and the particular consultant for North Korea within the first Trump administration. Mike Pompeo was the US secretary of state and the previous CIA director who influenced US coverage on North Korea and contributed to preparations for Trump’s summit with Kim.
Wit stated that the US has misunderstood North Korea on a basic stage for the previous 30 years, providing his critiques of previous administrations’ insurance policies on North Korea.
Wit views the Agreed Framework, reached below the Clinton administration in Geneva in 1994, as the one settlement to provide a sensible outcome within the pursuit of denuclearization. On the time, North Korea pledged a nuclear freeze and promised to dismantle its nuclear services. The US promised to permit the development of light-water reactors and to produce heavy oil.
“Kim Jong-il was critically interested by a distinct relationship with the USA,” Wit stated. “The issue, in fact, is that Clinton would have gone there and not using a deal accomplished. And nobody was keen to let him do this,” he stated, suggesting that issues could have labored out in another way had President Invoice Clinton made the journey to Pyongyang on the time.
Congressional opposition delayed implementation of the Geneva framework. Wit views this as the primary occasion of home politics holding again overseas diplomacy.
Wit stated that the primary Bush administration “trashed” the Agreed Framework.
“Within the second time period, they tried to reconstruct it by the six-party talks. Clearly, that didn’t work, however I believe, in the event you needed to look again, you’d say higher to have the six-party talks than to don’t have any talks in any respect,” he stated.
“And on the finish of the Bush administration, there was slightly little bit of a comeback by Dick Cheney, who was pushing for a lot tougher positions with the North Koreans. So the mixture of the 2 principally froze the negotiation,” Wit added.
Concerning the Obama administration’s “strategic persistence,” Wit talked about that it was extra an perspective than a coverage. His appraisal of Obama’s method is that it “was a mixture of little or no strain and little or no diplomacy” that finally led to the North Koreans increasing their nuclear capability as a result of the US administration thought time was on its aspect.
Obama ordered the Pentagon to draft plans for a preemptive strike, however when North Korea “paraded a cell ICBM” in 2012, Wit stated that the Obama administration decided that they couldn’t take away all cell ICBMs and judged {that a} preemptive strike was not possible.
Concerning the Trump administration, Wit praised it for considering outdoors the field, however thinks that if the administration had simply gone a step additional throughout the Hanoi summit, a historic deal may have been achieved. Whereas he stated the dismantling of the Yongbyon nuclear facility in change for sanctions aid was a practical step ahead, he lamented Trump’s choice to “stroll out.”
“Leaving all that apart,” Wit added, “He [Trump] was keen to think about an method outdoors the field.”
Concerning the Biden administration, Wit stated the administration fully lacked diplomatic creativeness when it got here to North Korea. Wit stated that until individuals proceed to assume outdoors the field as Trump did, the North Korea subject will proceed in its present impasse.
“We [in America] assume that we will change international locations and the way they view their nationwide pursuits. And the North Koreans weren’t going to vary their nationwide pursuits simply due to some restricted sanctions on their WMD program,” he stated.
Wit advocated for abandoning the fantasy of full denuclearization and for specializing in threat discount and deterrence, in what he known as a transition to practical diplomacy.
Wit warned towards recognizing North Korea as a nuclear energy.
“The trick right here is, and as soon as once more, this takes some fancy footwork, how to not acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear energy — to simply say, sure, we all know they’ve nuclear weapons, however not go any additional than that,” he stated.
Going additional than that would “set off a response” in South Korea, which he says has been contemplating both asking to deliver again tactical nuclear weapon deployments or advocating for arming themselves independently.
Concerning current actions within the US to evaluation the choice of stress-free restrictions on South Korea’s reprocessing of enriched uranium, Wit known as it “a slow-motion coverage catastrophe.”
He warned that permitting South Korea to go in the direction of nuclear armament would immediate a response from Japan, which might additional destabilize safety within the area.
By Kim Received-chul, Washington correspondent
Please direct questions or feedback to [english@hani.co.kr]
