Even By Crazytown Rules, North Korea Isn’t Making Sense

Yonhap News/Newscom via ZUMA

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On the one hand, this is exactly how North Korea operates, so it’s not much of a surprise. On the other hand, what’s the point of all this? The summit was North Korea’s idea in the first place. Why offer a summit, have it accepted, and then play hard-to-get? What would North Korea get out of having the summit canceled?

Is this just ordinary expectation lowering? Or an effort to humiliate Trump a little bit beforehand in order to soften him up? Given their behavior so far, what do we think North Korea is hoping to get out of all this? Can some Korea experts please chime in?

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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