Late last week, U.S. President Donald Trump put the brakes on diplomacy with North Korea. Only a day after his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced he would be visiting Pyongyang this week, Trump announced on twitter the trip had been called off. It was a move that not only caught his own officials off-guard, but also other players like South Korea and China. Are negotiations really at that much of a standstill, or is this another Trump 'Art of the Deal' negotiation tactic? We'll explore those questions with our expert guest in the studio, right after this wrap-up of Trump's announcement by Hwang Ho-jun. <br /> The Twitter bomb dropped just a day after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced he was going to visit North Korea next week.<br />President Trump tweeted on Friday local time that he asked Pompeo not to go to Pyongyang at this time due to the regime's insufficient progress on the issue of denuclearization. <br /> He also criticized China for hampering the process, in reference of the ongoing tariff war between Washington and Beijing.<br /> However, President Trump still sent his regards to Kim Jong-un, ending his tweet by saying he looks forward to seeing him soon.<br />Pompeo's visit would have been his fourth to North Korea.<br /> The cancellation of Pompeo's trip comes amid rising skepticism on whether the North Korean leader is serious about his commitment to dismantle the regime's nuclear and missile programs.<br />Since the North Korea-U.S. summit in June, Pyongyang has taken visual steps such as demolishing its only known nuclear test site and its missile engine testing site.<br /> However, experts say they are hard to verify without outside inspection.<br />Moreover, the International Atomic Energy Agency published a report this week, expressing its quote "grave concern" over North Korea's continued activities at the Yongbyon nuclear site.<br />Some observers are saying this is another tactic by the Trump administration to put more pressure on North Korea.<br /> In fact, this isn't the first time Trump has scrapped a scheduled meeting with Pyongyang; he called off his Singapore summit with Kim in May,... before hastily rearranging it.<br />Hwang Hojun, Arirang News. <br />
