Trump’s hardline cabinet may derail North Korea deal: Analyst

US President Donald Trump’s ability to abide by any agreement made during last week’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is unclear due to the “very complex” negotiations and the influence of war hawks and neoconservatives in the US administration, an American writer and academic says.

“This is going to be a long process, a difficult process, because the issues are very complex and involve negotiations with a very neocon, hardline cabinet,” said James Petras, a retired professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, who has published on political issues with particular focus on Latin America, the Middle East and imperialism.

Trump has created one of the most hawkish national security teams of any White House in recent history.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton, one of the architects of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, has suggested that Washington pursue a “Libya model” to denuclearize North Korea.

“So whatever Trump promised as far as negotiating a suspension of sanctions, it’s not going to be anything that will come out in the shortest period of time,” Petras told Press TV on Friday.

Trump and Kim arrived in Singapore on June 12 to hold the first ever face-to-face meeting between leaders of the two countries, which have remained enemies since the 1950-1953 Korean War.

After their summit, Trump and Kim promised in a joint statement to work toward the “denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula, and the United States promised its Cold War foe security guarantees.

But experts warn of an increased risk of armed conflict if diplomatic talks fail to produce a nuclear agreement.

While the summit is seen as a test for diplomacy that could end the standoff, the stakes are high if it does not lead to any progress on limiting the North's nuclear capabilities.

“If the North Korea-US summit fails to conclude in an agreement, war risks will increase, exceeding previous levels, because of another failure of diplomacy," Alison Evans, deputy head of Asia Pacific country risk at IHS Markit, told NBC News. 

Experts say any agreement could run into trouble because the US and North Korea hold different understandings of what it means for the latter to denuclearize.

"When they fail, it is not just the specific peace process that has failed, it is diplomacy as a strategy that has failed," Bruce Jones, vice president and director of the foreign policy program at Brookings Institution, wrote in an op-ed published on the Nikkei Asian Review.

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