The president is still clinging to the fantasy that Kim Jong-un agreed to disarm at the Singapore summit, and he is threatening North Korea if Kim “fails” to honor the agreement he never made:

Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way. He signed a strong Denuclearization Agreement with me in Singapore. He does not want to void his special relationship with the President of the United States or interfere…. https://t.co/THfOjfB2uE

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2019

….with the U.S. Presidential Election in November. North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, has tremendous economic potential, but it must denuclearize as promised. NATO, China, Russia, Japan, and the entire world is unified on this issue!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2019

Nothing is less likely to convince Kim and the North Korean government to make concessions than threatening them with the loss of “everything” (i.e., regime change). Much depends on what Trump chooses to define as “hostile” behavior from North Korea. If he thinks that North Korea made a meaningful commitment to disarm and then concludes that they are reneging on it, that spells serious trouble for the new year. Trump is absurdly wrong to say that the Singapore summit produced a “strong denuclearization agreement.” It produced no agreement at all, and even the vague statement that did come out of the summit doesn’t suggest that North Korea is willing to disarm. The U.S. and North Korea are on the cusp of a completely avoidable crisis, and Trump will bear a significant portion of the blame for it.

The president also overrates the importance of his relationship with Kim. Kim has little or nothing to show for negotiating with Trump and probably sees no reason to do Trump any favors in an election year. The reality is that North Korea made no such commitment to disarm, and their government’s patience has all but run out. The end-of-year deadline that they have talked about for months approaches, and the U.S. negotiating position remains as hopelessly unrealistic as ever. The U.S. and North Korea are already well on their way to resuming the tit-for-tat insults and provocations that we saw in 2017.

The open secret of Trump’s failed North Korea policy is that much of “the world” hasn’t been on board with “maximum pressure” for more than a year. The Trump administration has wrongly assumed that pressure tactics brought North Korea to the table, and they wrongly assume that pressure tactics will compel North Korea to make significant concessions. North Korea was willing to engage for a time when they thought that some sanctions relief might be offered, and now that sanctions relief obviously won’t be forthcoming they aren’t going to bother with further talks. There was an opening here for a modest arms control agreement that would reduce or at least cap North Korea’s arsenal, but because of their foolish maximalist goals the Trump administration squandered that opportunity.