Fewer than half of Americans say second Trump-Kim summit reduced North Korea nuclear threat: poll

Most believe it was a good idea for President Trump to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong un for a second time, but fewer than half of those surveyed in a new poll released Thursday believe the two leaders made progress toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula during last week’s summit in Vietnam.

A Monmouth University Poll survey found that 44 percent of respondents said the summit is likely to help decrease the nuclear threat of North Korea, while 44 percent said it is unlikely to help.

Roughly half of the public said following the two leaders’ first meeting last June that the first summit would reduce the nuclear threat, according to a poll conducted at the time.

{mosads}Those surveyed in Thursday’s poll are equally split on how confident they are in Trump’s handling of negotiations with North Korea. Forty-two percent said they are confident in the president, compared to 40 percent surveyed who said they are not confident.

The poll showed a clearer consensus on whether it was a good idea for Trump to travel to Vietnam for a second summit with Kim. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed — including 42 percent of Democrats — said it was a good idea, compared to 27 percent who viewed it as a bad idea.

The Monmouth poll surveyed 802 adults in the U.S. from March 1-4. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

Trump and Kim met last week in Hanoi, Vietnam, over two days to discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The two leaders failed to come to a deal on denuclearization or sanctions relief for North Korea.

Multiple news outlets reported on Tuesday that satellite images showed reconstruction taking place at a launch facility near the Chinese border that North Korea had started to dismantle prior to Kim’s first meeting with Trump.

Trump said Wednesday he would be “very disappointed” if North Korea were reassembling their nuclear arsenal.

Multiple reports on Thursday said new activity had also been detected at a North Korean long-range missile facility on the outskirts of Pyongyang.