President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un started off their second summit Wednesday in Hanoi, Vietnam. During the meeting, Trump praised Vietnam’s “thriving” economy and said the country is “an example as to what can happen with good thinking.” Those compliments were set against the backdrop of Trump saying in a morning twitter post that North Korea’s economy could do as well as Vietnam if Kim agreed to give up his nation’s nuclear weapons.

After his time with the Vietnamese President, Trump headed to meetings with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.  Last June, the leaders held a signing ceremony for a declaration that said both sides would commit to establishing better relations and that North Korea “commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

With the given information, some may conclude that Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un was less than successful, as they did not seem to come to any sort of agreement. However, during a press conference, Trump described the meeting as “very productive” and acclaims the failure to reach a goal stemmed from disagreements over U.S. sanctions against North Korea.

Trump later said that ” Kim Jong Un was only willing to denuclearize areas that are less important than the ones that we want.” President Trump is the first President to meet with a North Korean leader since 1948. At the Summit in Singapore last year, Trump and Kim signed a joint statement that promised “A complete  denuclearization” while Kim negotiated into keeping “some nukes”.

ERHS senior, Skylee Campos was asked  what she thought of the meeting between Trump and Kim and she responded by saying that,” I was not  surprised that no progress was made at the summit. It seems like the two can never make up their mind on what they want.”