Graham: Trump should get Senate approval on any agreement with North Korea

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday he would encourage President Trump to get Senate approval on any deal he negotiates with North Korea. 

“I would urge the president if he can negotiate an agreement with Kim Jong Un, that he takes that agreement and sends it to the Senate,” Graham said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

Graham’s comments about a potential agreement with North Korea come as Trump prepares to meet with Kim on June 12 in Singapore. The meeting comes amid thawing relations between the two countries. 

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said if Kim agreed to fully dismantle his nuclear program, the U.S. could offer North Korea economic assistance in the form of sanctions relief and private capital.

“We can create conditions for real economic prosperity for the North Korean people that can rival that of the South. It won’t be U.S. taxpayers,” Pompeo said Sunday.

Graham said he believes that if North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear program, “there would be a lot of support in Congress to give North Korea a better life.”

“Provide aid, relieve sanctions with one condition: that you give up your nuclear weapons program in a verifiable way,” he said. “When it comes to North Korea, I think there’d be a lot of congressional support.”

He added that if leaders reached a peace treaty to end the Korean War, which was never officially ended in the 1950s, he wouldn’t oppose a move to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea.

At that point, Graham said, he’d leave it up to Trump to determine whether to leave troops in the region or send them elsewhere.

The president has previously pushed back on reports that pulling U.S. troops out of South Korea is on the table amid negotiations with Kim.