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

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The latest:

JUST IN: North Korea state news says a foreign ministry official will suggest the country’s leadership reconsider U.S.-North Korea summit, says future of summit is entirely up to Washington pic.twitter.com/6h7gAK7yR4

— Reuters World (@ReutersWorld) May 23, 2018

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?