Abstract
Subject US national security policy and personnel. Significance On September 11, President Donald Trump instructed his national security team to prepare for a second in-person summit with North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un, likely inspired by Kim’s recent letter requesting this. Trump’s directive appeared to have blindsided Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been managing denuclearisation talks with Pyongyang since the first Kim-Trump summit in June, and disregarded the view of almost all of his new national security team (its second iteration since his inauguration) that Pyongyang has no real intention of denuclearising soon. Impacts If Democrats make gains in November, they are likely to seek to curtail defence expenditure, including current projects. As elections near, Trump's decision-making may place more store in his political instincts than US intelligence agencies’ estimates. The new security team is unlikely to bring greater amity to US-China ties, partly given internal policy disagreements.
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