THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. I want to begin by thanking the Prime Minister and President of Vietnam. We’re in Hanoi. It’s an incredible city. What’s happened over the last 25 years has been incredible for the people of Vietnam, the job they’ve done — economic development. Really something special. So I want to thank all of the people of Vietnam for having treated us so well.
We have, I think, reasonably attractive news from Pakistan and India. They’ve been going at it, and we’ve been involved in trying to have them stop. And we have some reasonably decent news. I think, hopefully, that’s going to be coming to an end. It’s been going on for a long time — decades and decades. There’s a lot of dislike, unfortunately. So we’ve been in the middle, trying to help them both out and see if we can get some organization and some peace. And I think, probably, that’s going to be happening.
We have — Venezuela, as you know, has been very much in the news, and we’re sending supplies. Supplies are getting through a little bit more. It’s not easy. It’s hard to believe somebody would say “let’s not do it.” What difference would that make, except it’s great for its people to let it get through. But we’re sending a lot of supplies down to Venezuela. People are starving to death, and you would really think that the man in charge, currently, would let those supplies get through. We are getting them into some of the cities and some of the areas that need them the most. And it’s not an easy job. It’s very difficult, actually.
On North Korea, we just left Chairman Kim. We had a really, I think, a very productive time. We thought, and I thought, and Secretary Pompeo felt that it wasn’t a good thing to be signing anything. I’m going to let Mike speak about it.
But we literally just left. We spent pretty much all day with Kim Jong Un, who is — he’s quite a guy and quite a character. And I think our relationship is very strong. But at this time — we had some options, and at this time we decided not to do any of the options. And we’ll see where that goes.
But it was a very interesting two days. And I think, actually, it was a very productive two days. But sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times. And I’ll let Mike speak to that for a couple of minutes, please.
SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you, Mr. President. We had been working, our teams — the team that I brought to bear, as well as the North Koreans — for weeks to try and develop a path forward so at the summit we could make a big step — a big step along the way towards what the two leaders had agreed to back in Singapore, in June of last year.
We made real progress. And indeed we made even more progress when the two leaders met over the last 24, 36 hours. Unfortunately, we didn’t get all the way. 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. He was unprepared to do that. But I’m still optimistic. I’m hopeful that the teams will get back together in the days and weeks ahead, and continue to work out what’s a very complex problem.
We have said, since the beginning, that this would take time. Our teams have gotten to know each other better. We know what the limits are. We know where some of the challenges are.
And I think as we continue to work on this in the days and weeks ahead, we can make progress so that we can ultimately achieve what it is that the world wants, which is to denuclearize North Korea, to reduce risk for the American people and the people all around the world.
I wish we could have gotten a little bit further, but I’m very optimistic that the progress that we made — both in the run-up to this summit, as well as the progress that the two leaders made over these past two days — put us in position to get a really good outcome.
And the President and Chairman Kim both felt good that they had made that progress but couldn’t quite get along the line any further to make a deal that would have been bigger at this point. I hope we’ll do so in the weeks ahead.