North Korea’s government made it known they won’t be talking to the U.S. unless the Trump administration reduces its demands:

North Korea said Friday that nuclear negotiations with the United States will never resume unless the Trump administration moves away from what Pyongyang described as unilateral demands for disarmament.

The statement by an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman published in state media was the country’s latest expression of displeasure over the stalled negotiations as it continues to press Washington to soften its stance on enforcing sanctions against the North’s crippled economy.

Trump’s demand at Hanoi that North Korea give up everything in its nuclear arsenal along with its missiles and other unconventional weapons was never going to be acceptable to them, and that is why the summit collapsed. Since then, the U.S. has not budged, and the talks have stalled. Now North Korea confirms that there will be no more talks as long as the U.S. insists on its maximalist, lopsided demand. The report continues:

“We hereby make it clear once again that the United States would not be able to move us even an inch with the device it is now weighing in its mind, and the further its mistrust and hostile acts toward the DPRK grow, the fiercer our reaction will be,” the statement said, referring to North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“Unless the United States puts aside the current method of calculation and comes forward with a new method of calculation, the DPRK-U.S. dialogue will never be resumed and by extension, the prospect for resolving the nuclear issue will be much gloomy,” the statement added.

The North Korean side is being very clear about what will keep the process from ending, but the administration appears to be oblivious to what they must do to fix things. The obvious solution to salvage the situation is to give up on the fantasy of complete disarmament and begin talking about more modest concessions in exchange for sanctions relief, but following the failure at Hanoi caused by the administration’s hard-line position the U.S. has moved in the opposite direction. Trump is under very little pressure in Washington to change course because he received so much praise for “walking away” from a “bad deal” when in fact it was his own one-sided proposal that blew up the summit.

This is not the first warning the U.S. has received. Kim Jong-un previously stated that the U.S. would have until the end of the year to change its position, and he added, “It is essential for the U.S. to quit its current calculation method and approach us with a new one.” There has been no sign that anyone in the administration takes this deadline seriously or that they have any intention of devising a new approach that might get the talks back on track. The year is almost half over, and we should assume that North Korea’s government isn’t joking when they tell us that they are waiting only until year’s end.

The administration’s North Korea policy was set up to fail because it had unrealistic goals from the start. Worse still, it has been implemented by people who loathe diplomacy and view compromise as “appeasement.” If they had wanted talks to succeed, they should have been willing to settle for smaller agreements first and then build towards larger ones. Unfortunately, thanks to his vanity and his hawkish advisers Trump has consistently pursued only the “big” deal that was always out of reach. In the meantime, inter-Korean rapprochement is faltering because U.S.-North Korean talks have gone nowhere. Trump’s failed North Korea policy is not only a missed opportunity for the U.S., but it is also potentially sabotaging South Korea’s much more successful engagement.