The heavily-hyped denuclearization talks and a second summit between president Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un failed spectacularly this afternoon, with the United States admitting defeat in securing a deal acceptable to both sides.
Both leaders had earlier loudly predicted success in this, their second summit.
A visibly confused Trump left it to his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to explain the failure before a packed press conference in Hanoi only hours after a working lunch was suddenly called off. The abrupt cancellation of this working lunch where both sides would finalize the deal before issuing a memorandum of agreement to cap the two-day summit was a clear indication the talks had failed.
Trump said he cut short the summit because the two sides couldn't agree on sanctions.
"It wasn't a good thing to be signing anything," said Trump. "We had some options, and at this time we decided not to do any of the options, and we'll see where that goes."
"Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times."
Trump also said Kim wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety "and we couldn't do that. They were willing to de-nuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn't give up all of the sanctions for that. So we continue to work and we'll see, but we had to walk away from that particular suggestion. We had to walk away from that."
Trump said Kim was willing to close down one weapons facility (the Yongbyon nuclear complex) in exchange for the complete removal of sanctions.
Pompeo said the U.S. had tried to lay the groundwork before the summit for an agreement, but Thursday's talks went nowhere.
"Unfortunately, we didn't get all the way," said Pompeo. "We didn't get to something that ultimately made sense for the United States of America. I think Chairman Kim was hopeful that we would. We asked him to do more and he was unprepared to do that."
Pompeo specified that "even the Yongbyon facility in all of its scope - which is important for sure - still leaves missiles, still leaves warheads and weapons systems, so there's a lot of other elements we just couldn't get to."
Trump also said both sides had learned more of the other and this knowledge would be put to better use in the next Trump-Kim summit -- if there ever if one.
Trump now faces the possibility of impeachment on account of the explosive revelations made by his ex-lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, a few hours before the summit's second day began.
North Korean observers noted that North Korea might have canceled the talks since they now face the possibility Trump might not be around over the next year to live up to any commitments.
