North Korean test site back up and running after Hanoi failure

• Wit said he didn't expect a test at Sohae in the short term and asked: “How can everyone dismiss the importance of this site [when North Korea offered to dismantle it] and now when they start to rebuild it all the alarm bells are going off?”
• “The fact that they were willing to dismantle it had larger symbolic meaning,” added 38 North’s Jenny Town. She said it signaled the North Koreans might be willing to eliminate their space program, which is a source of national pride and was a sticking point in past negotiations.

What’s next: “You don’t know whether this is a bargaining tactic or whether someone has made a decision that now we’re moving on this other track,” Wit said. Noting that neither Trump nor Kim Jong-un is known for patience, he added: “What’s going on at Sohae tells me someone might have said, ‘let’s take a shortcut.’”

• “The danger here is we could start spiraling downward as each side takes steps that undermine the process that’s been in place since last June.”

The latest: Trump was asked today about the activity at Sohae and said he’d be “very disappointed in Chairman Kim” if the news proved accurate, but “it'll ultimately get solved."