of trump. reporter: but there is now concern that trump s hand with kim jong-un might have gotten weaker because a pullback against iran. trump s take on the iranians is something trump will take on board. this will be a dangerous condition where north koreans could challenge us, and we know what north korea can do. they can kill americans. reporter: another concern that xi and kim might help push trump back together. they are aware that north korea-china ties could work against america. my biggest fear is that china will not implement sanctions or not be as vigorous about sanctions implementation. so far sanctions are our biggest leverage against north korea, and to try to sharpen kim s
pagetry, a new level and a lot of sanctions implementation. appreciate your insights. betsy, to you quickly for another major international story, the crisis in venezuela, again, secretary mike pompeo fired a shot over the bow of the maduro administration. take a listen. i m confident that the venezuelaen people will ensure maduro s days are numbered. and set fire to trucks attempting to deliver food and supplies from neighboring colombia. meanwhile, vice president pence is traveling to colombia tomorrow to meet with opposition leader kwan guaido. i m curious. a senior administration official said the vice president will announce concrete steps and clear actions to address the crisis tomorrow when he meets with other regional leaders. part of the lima group meeting. what might steps and action be or look like? i haven t seen clear reporting what those concrete steps might be.
introverted. he likes to go around and be social. but not in foreign countries. but getting a lot of international recognition and legacy as a normal leader of a normal country. he now gets to sit down with president of the united states. so i think he s already gained by having this meeting with president trump. i think he is also gained by having all this diplomacy in the last few months because again he looks like a normal leader. he has already weakened a political will for sanctions implementation. we ve heard of china loosening implementation of sanctions on the ground. what happens with this summit it is very hard for us to get back to maximum pressure and he has gained. the bar is so low, the fact that when they got nuclear weapons, everyone said we got to figure out what to do about this now. the bar is so low, so him just going out and walking around and taking selfies, suddenly i guess we can deal with this guy? well, frankly, in all this hoopla you don t get a sense t
these developments because they ve been trying to midwife this meeting between the u.s. and north korea. prime minister abe from japan is obviously worried because he s the only one without a summit planned and kim has so far refused to meet with the japanese. kim obviously went to see president xi jinping to make sure he has china s support and to reduce china s appetite for sanctions implementation. so we have a variety and a range of feelings and approaches from the region about this u.s./north korea meeting. let me switch gears and talk about the nikki haley flap about russia sanctions. she said she wasn t confused. the white house saying she got out a little bit ahead of the curve. sky ne why do you think trump is so reluctant to hold russia accountable? this is a sort of a breakdown
sanctions that vladimir putin would care about. the oligarchs are arms of the russian government. they are wealthy people that putin controls. and so when we think about what these sanctions might actually mean, now remember, congress passed bipartisan legislation several months ago that required the department of the treasury to list oligarchs out, and they did not impose sanctions on these oligarchs back in january. they came under a lot of criticism. so what we could be seeing is the next phase of sanctions implementation. my gut is, wolf, if these sanctions go forward, vladimir putin is not just going to have a tit for tat response, he s going to be really miffed and probably retaliate. because the president until recently was dragging his feet on the sanctions, even though sanctions were very strongly voted overwhelmingly in the house and senate. the timing of this decision to go after oligarchs with these new decisions. right. don t forget last night h.r. mcmaster, who s the