THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Following the recent statements by Kim Jon Un most people would realize that diplomatic negotiations with an unstable third world country do not go the way you want just because you have said so. It is reasonable to expect that Donald Trump does not understand this. He has made it clear that he wants North Korea to denuclearize without offering anything in return.

The White House on Wednesday brushed aside threats by North Korea to cancel a summit meeting between President Trump and its leader, Kim Jong-un, but the harsh words underscored the chasm that will separate the two leaders next month in Singapore over how to deal with North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

Mr. Trump struck a noncommittal tone about the status of the meeting — “We’ll have to see,” he told reporters — but said he still planned to demand that the North surrender its entire nuclear program. A top North Korean official said Mr. Kim would not tolerate attempts to “drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment.”

While administration officials and outside experts said they believed the meeting would go off as planned, the clashing messages brought a diplomatic high-wire act temporarily back to earth, replacing the talk of history-making handshakes and Nobel Peace Prizes with the sober recognition that North Korea views disarmament very differently than the United States does.

The reversal came after months in which Mr. Kim presented himself as a statesman, halting missile tests and freeing imprisoned Americans. Now, the North has reverted to its earlier hard-line stance on keeping its nuclear weapons and to a playbook that includes sudden shifts in tactics when negotiating with other nations.

North Korea’s warning came as Mr. Trump faced pressure to settle an escalating trade dispute with the North’s principal economic patron, China. Mr. Kim has made two trips to China to seek its support since inviting Mr. Trump to meet. Some administration officials said they believed that China was exploiting its leverage over North Korea to pressure Mr. Trump into a deal on trade.

American officials also said the North appeared to be exploiting the differences between the hawkish views of the national security adviser, John R. Bolton, and the more moderate tone of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has met twice with Mr. Kim in Pyongyang to arrange the summit meeting.

Mr. Bolton has said the precedent for the North Korea negotiations should be Libya, which agreed in 2003 to box up its entire nuclear program and ship it out of the country without conditions. North Korea, he said, should expect to receive no benefits, including the lifting of sanctions, until it has done the same.

For some reason Kim took offense at being threatened. And Mango Muffinbutt thinks he can threaten his way through their first point of disagreement. It's beginning to look like a Korean Stand-Off with the amateur set to lose bigly.