Axios

While high hopes and expectations for the planned Kim–Trump summit in Singapore seemed to vanish yesterday, Trump's letter to Kim left open the possibility to reschedule, and North Korea's reaction was surprisingly humble and flexible, affirming a willingness to meet.

Yes, but: Even if Trump’s North Korea diplomacy ends here, the mere prospect of the June summit has already enhanced Kim’s status on the international stage and conferred legitimacy on his authoritarian regime. Under diplomatic pretenses, North Korea drew China closer to its side after an extended period of tensions, and its relations with South Korea have also significantly improved. Going forward, it will be much more difficult for the U.S. maximum pressure campaign —not to mention U.S. military action — to garner support from these countries.

Eleven days before President Trump's inauguration, his personal lawyer Michael Cohen took part in a meeting at Trump Tower with billionaire Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, reports the New York Times.

The big picture: After President Trump was inaugurated, Cohen received a $1 million consulting contract from private equity firm Columbus Nova — headed by Andrew Intrater, who also attended the Vekselberg meeting. Though Vekselberg is Intrater's family member and biggest client, Intrater denied to the Times that the businessman had anything to do with Columbus Nova's contract.

President Trump's decision to cancel the North Korea summit is bad news for China — because it's in China's interest for Trump and Kim Jong-un to talk.

What's next: If the summit is truly off, the U.S. will likely double down on pushing for strict implementation of all UN sanctions and continue the "maximum pressure" campaign to squeeze North Korea into submission. China has only joined those efforts reluctantly, and has been hoping they would ease off with the Trump-Kim dialogue.

The Pentagon has withdrawn China's invitation to the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise in Hawaii due to China's expansion and militarization in the South China Sea.

Why it matters: China's participation in RIMPAC was seen as a confidence-building measure to improve communications between the U.S. and Chinese militaries. The goal was to lower the risk of misunderstandings and accidents between the two navies, since they're both operating on the high seas.

A 30-strong White House advance team is still planning to fly to Singapore on Sunday to prepare for a summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, despite President Trump’s abrupt cancellation of the event yesterday, Politico reports.

Why it matters: Per the Politico report, the staffers have been asked to “keep the door open” for a potential summit — which President Trump said today could ultimately still take place. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said today, “we have got some, possibly some good news on the Korea summit, where it may, if our diplomats can pull it off, may have it back on even.” That followed a statement from North Korea that the summit was still necessary, and they are prepared to talk.

In the span of a month, President Trump has managed to create two nuclear crises. First, he walked away from the Iran nuclear deal, and then he scrapped the North Korea summit. Now, the world faces both the prospect of Iran restarting its nuclear program and the far-more menacing threat of a full-blown nuclear-capable North Korea.

The big picture: Gone is American credibility to manage complex global issues. In fact, rather than acting as the bulwark against dangers to world order, the U.S. is now seen as the country inflaming them.

President Trump responded to North Korea's assertion that it is willing to sit down "at any time in any form" with a Friday morning tweet, calling it "very good news."

Go deeper: The coming days could dictate whether we're headed for renewed dialogue, a nuclear standoff, or something in between.

The United States was closer to war with North Korea last summer than is widely known, sources close to the White House tell us. And now that same dangerous uncertainty is back.

The big picture: The White House is now sufficiently suspicious of the intentions of Kim Jong-un — "Little Rocket Man" to Trump only eight months ago — that Pyongyang would likely have to grovel to get the president to personally re-engage.

China’s debt-trap diplomacy is giving the country greater control over developing nations across Asia and Africa, like Angola, Sri Lanka and Djibouti. This is all part of Xi Jinping’s grand strategy to make China the global superpower by 2050.

I asked James Clapper, whose new book "Facts and Fears" is out this week, how President Trump should proceed after the pre-summit breakdown with North Korea.

The bottom line: Clapper, who was an intelligence officer in Korea in the 1980s and three decades later served as Barack Obama's presidential envoy on a high-stakes trip to Pyongyang, is deeply familiar with the challenges posed by North Korea. He told me Trump should still aim for direct talks with Kim Jong-un, but should stay quiet on the issue in the meantime.

It's now Kim Jong-un's move in the high-stakes game he and President Trump are playing, and neither side seems to know what the rules are.

Why it matters: The coming days could dictate whether we're headed for renewed dialogue, a nuclear standoff, or something in between. North Korea has just sent the first signal of how it will respond to Trump's decision to cancel the June 12 summit, saying it went against "the world's wishes" and a summit is urgently needed to resolve "grave hostile relations."

Trump had reportedly ordered the White House to release the Kim letter without consulting global allies in order to avoid potential leaks, per the Wall Street Journal, as Trump's leak-ridden communications team has been the subject of scrutiny and headlines in recent weeks.

The big picture: President Trump's decision to cancel the widely anticipated June 12 summit with North Korea Kim Jong-un has triggered backlash and outrage among international leaders who are bracing to see what’s next between Trump and Kim. This was billed as a historic summit but now, the Washington–Pyongyang standoff is prompting both sides to get back to basics.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan responded to President Trump's cancellation of the U.S.-North Korea summit on Thursday, saying the regime is ready to meet "at any time," the Washington Post reports. He said the summit is essential to dealing with "grave hostilities" between the two countries.

“Leader Kim Jong Un had focused every effort on his meeting with President Trump."

President Trump hasn’t shut the door on the possibility that a North Korea summit could still happen — but for now, he’s warning North Korea not to try anything.

Behind the scenes: A White House official told Axios’ Jonathan Swan: “They literally threatened nuclear war. …[N]o summit will work under these circumstances, when they’re literally threatening our people.”

For now, it’s back to the days of “fire and fury.”

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is promoting his new book, "Facts and Fears," this week, and his media appearances have caught the president's attention. I asked Clapper about Trump's latest tweet, claiming Clapper had "admitted that there was Spying in my campaign."

"He deliberately spun it, distorted it. I mean this is George Orwell — up is down, black is white, peace is war. That's exactly what I didn't say. I took aversion to the word spy, it was the most benign version of information gathering. The important thing is the whole reason the FBI was doing this was concern over what the Russians were doing to infiltrate the campaign, not spying on the campaign. Of course, he turned that completely upside-down in his tweet, as he is wont to do."

Distraught as much of the international community was over President Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Latin American leaders may have seen it coming earlier than many. Since the campaign trail, Trump has set a new, highly disruptive tone for U.S. relations with the region.

Why it matters: With a few notable exceptions, Latin America sees itself as supporting the principles of the liberal international order, particularly cooperation on nuclear arms control. The U.S. withdrawal from the Iran deal will make it much harder for the region's leaders to sell their publics on the idea that the U.S. lives up to its commitments.

The cancellation of the widely anticipated Trump–Kim summit in Singapore represents the latest turn in a period of dramatic zig-zag diplomacy: Just a few months ago, the President was calling Kim "Little Rocket Man" and threatening to destroy his country, while Kim was testing missiles and talking about nuclear attacks.

The big picture: The future of North Korea policy is likely to look much like the past, and the recent spate of high-level engagement merely an aberration in the Washington–Pyongyang standoff.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that President Trump canceled the North Korea summit in part because North Korea wasn’t responding to inquiries about planning the details of the summit, and that he helped draft Trump's letter canceling the summit.

What Pompeo said: “Over the past many days, we have endeavored to do what Chairman Kim and I had agreed, which was to put teams, preparation teams together to begin to work to prepare for the summit and we have received no response to our inquiries from them.” He also raised the possibility of new sanctions against Pyongyang.

President Trump's cancellation of the June 12 nuclear summit with Kim Jong-un is unlikely to be the last word. Trump and Kim are engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken, with each convinced the other wants and needs the summit more. The cancellation is Trump’s response to Kim's taking denuclearization off the table. The ball is now back in Kim’s court.  

Why it matters: Both leaders still likely want this meeting to happen. For Kim, the meeting itself is the message, granting him the legitimacy his father and grandfather sought but never secured. Meanwhile, Trump has so hyped his ability to succeed where his predecessors fell short that declaring preemptive failure would be a huge embarrassment.

South Korean officials were blindsided by President Trump’s Thursday morning announcement that he was canceling the June summit with Kim Jong-un, per the AP. President Moon Jae-in said, "I am very perplexed and it is very regrettable" that the summit won't go ahead as planned.

What’s happening: At a late-night emergency meeting called to respond to Trump's announcement, Moon urged Trump to hold direct talks with Kim to resolve the standoff, per Yonhap. Moon only returned to South Korea yesterday after meeting with Trump at the White House to discuss the summit. He is now in a difficult position, as South Korea had planned to resume peace talks with the North.

President Trump’s abrupt decision to call off the scheduled June 12 summit with Kim Jung-un does not change the fundamental dynamics between the U.S. and North Korea: There was no way the summit could have succeeded so long as the Trump administration defined success as a North Korean agreement to total denuclearization.

Better that the summit was postponed than to have ended up in dramatic failure, which would have led some to conclude (incorrectly) that diplomacy had been tried and failed, leaving a dangerous and costly war as the only U.S. alternative.

Yes, but: The cancellation does highlight the lack of a viable U.S. strategy. Given the regime's resilience, allied with Chinese and Russian assistance, sanctions and war threats will not bring North Korea to its knees. Worse yet, there is the risk that North Korea could now increase the quality or quantity of its arms.

President Trump spoke at the White House today about his decision to cancel next month's planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, saying that he had spoken to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the joint chiefs of staff who assured him that the U.S. military "is ready if necessary."

Yes, but: Trump didn't close the door entirely on meeting with Kim: "It’s possible that the existing summit could take place or a summit at some later date. Nobody should be anxious. We have to get it right."

The missile that took down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which killed 298 people in 2014 was launched from Russia's 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade from a farm near Pervomaisk, Ukraine, investigators announced Thursday.

Why it matters: This is the most specific information investigators have released to date on Russia's involvement in the incident, and it "raises questions such as to whether the brigade was actively involved in downing MH17," head prosecutor Fred Westerbeke said at the news conference, per CNN.

President Trump announced the cancellation of his scheduled June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a letter released this morning by the White House.

Between the lines: This had been billed as an unprecedented and historic summit, and a chance for a long-sought breakthrough with North Korea. Kim Jong-un had threatened to cancel it, and now President Trump has done it. He's saying he's open to meeting in future, but only on his terms. Markets fell sharply on the news, and tensions with Pyongyang are likely to ratchet up — and quickly.

North Korea demolished its nuclear test site using a series of explosions as international journalists looked on ahead of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's scheduled meeting with President Trump next month, AP reports.

But, but, but: International nuclear weapons inspectors weren't on hand for today's event, which leaves open the possibility that the move is reversible and doesn't signal a definite move toward North Korean denuclearization. It also shows North Korea signaling it is distancing itself from potential future verification, which is where conversations on denuclearization have fallen apart before.

A top North Korean official called Vice President Mike Pence a "political dummy" and threatened to call off the upcoming summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The big picture: Tensions between North Korea and the United States have risen following Korean officials announcing the country refuses to meet the United States’ demand of denuclearization. In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Pence reiterated the administration’s stance on denuclearization for North Korea.