Trump-Kim summit: US president blames failure of talks on North Korea's demand for sanctions to be dropped
Follow the latest updates on the historic meeting
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have cut short their talks in Hanoi, Vietnam and skipped a scheduled lunch event.
The White House confirmed the summit had ended with “no agreement reached” as the leaders headed back to their respective hotels.
The US president talks broke down over North Korea’s demands on US-led sanctions.
“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that,” he told reporters. “Sometimes you have to walk.”
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said negotiations would continue at a future date.
Several Democrats came out acknowledging Mr Trump’s decision to walk away without a deal was the right move in this situation. Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff said walking away with no deal was better than agreeing to a bad deal, before adding that it was “the result of a poorly planned strategy.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed similar statements, citing his concerns about the likelihood of a bad deal forming out of the summit.
“A deal that fell short of complete denuclearization would have only made North Korea stronger & the world less safe,” Mr Schumer said.
After the summit, Mr Trump also defended Mr Kim over the tragic death of American college student Otto Warmbier, who was jailed in North Korea in December 2015 for attempting to steal propaganda material during an organised tour.The president said he does not believe the autocratic leader was aware of Mr Warmbier’s condition in the North Korean hard labour prison camp.
"He tells me he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word,” Mr Trump said.
After two years of imprisonment, North Korean authorities returned Mr Warbier to the US in a coma in July 2017. A few days later, the 22-year-old died in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman criticised the American president’s defense of Mr Kim.
“I’m very concerned that the President didn’t seem to be all that concerned about the murder of Otto Warmbier from Cincinnati,” Mr Brown told reporters on Thursday. “I don’t know how he says he likes the dictator of NK so much.”
Mr Portman insists that Mr Trump and the American people must remember Mr Warmbier and that “we should never let North Korea off the hook for what they did to him."
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Children wave US and Vietnamese flags before the arrival of US President Donald Trump for a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart (Getty)
Ahead of Wednesday's second meeting between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, 19 US Democratic members of Congress have called for an official end to the Korean War, CNN said as Mr Trump prepared for his meeting.
The group introduced a resolution to the US Congress calling on the Trump administration to provide a “clear roadmap to achieve a final peace settlement".
Here's a link to the resolution:
Mr Trump's motorcade has left his hotel - on his way for a meeting with Vietnam's prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, and its president, Nguyen Phu Trong
And so Trump begins the first key event of this summit - a meeting with the Vietnamese president.
A bust of Ho Chi Minh provides the backdrop for the relatively short discussion at the grand, colonial-era presidential palace. Nguyen Phu Trong is also the leader of the Communist Party in Vietnam.
Donald Trump meets Vietnamese president Nguyen Phu Trong (AP)
Mr Trump in his meeting with Nguyen Phu Trong said they will be signing big trade deals today, including one relating to Boeing, according to Reuters.
The Associated Press said Mr Trump’s call to the host nation’s leadership is meant to provide Mr Kim with a visualisation of a potential future should he give up his country’s nuclear weapons in a deal with the US; after a decade of bloody conflict that ended more than four decades ago, the US and Vietnam are now economic and strategic partners, it said
From one of the many US reporters on the ground in Hanoi:
Channel News Asia said the US-Vietnam deals could be worth as much as $3bn
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