The Impact of the North Korea – U.S. summit

Summiti

Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump–the handshake.

[Commentary]

June 12th, 2018 was a long-awaited day since for the first time in history, the president of the United States met with the leader of North Korea, in an attempt to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and put an end to a war started in 1950. The meeting between the two leaders is now over and CNBC documented what had happened there. Donald Trump happy with the progress: As expected, the U.S. President kept the same optimistic tone in a speech held right after the meeting with Kim Jong Un. Although no actual measures had been taken, he assured that things are on the right path and significant progress will be made. Both leaders signed an agreement at the end of the summit.

According to CNBC, the document contains a few commitment that both leaders had taken. Their goal is “to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity”. Also, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea reaffirmed its commitment towards complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. There were great expectations around the summit and all the financial world had been eagerly awaiting to see what will happen since financial trading could have been influenced by any minor sign of disagreement between the two leaders. That has not been the case since the meeting turned out to be diplomatic and inspired trust that things might work well in the fact. As a result, trading around the world saw no significant change, with the main stock markets almost unchanged since the release of the news related to the summit. 

Could China be favored from a geopolitical point of view? Looking just at the summit we cannot draw any significant conclusion. There is still no actual measure implemented, just a commitment from both leaders. However, if we analyze the global geopolitical framework, reduced tensions between the United States and North Korea could have a significant on how things will evolve in the region.

Peace in the Korean peninsula could result in reduced U.S. military activity in the region, allowing China to expand its influence. Although the US- DPRK summit ended well, that is not a guarantee that things will go indefinitely on an upwards path. Further negotiations will follow in the future, and both parts will not give up too easily on their goals.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *