The Singapore Summit was the first-ever face-to-face meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader. Held at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island on 12 June 2018, it brought together President Donald J. Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The meeting followed a period of acute tension in 2017 marked by DPRK intercontinental ballistic missile tests, its sixth nuclear test in September 2017, and an exchange of personal threats between the two leaders.
The summit produced a brief joint statement with four commitments: (1) to establish new U.S.–DPRK relations; (2) to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula; (3) DPRK commitment to "work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula"; and (4) recovery and repatriation of remains of U.S. service members from the Korean War. Trump separately announced the suspension of large-scale U.S.–Republic of Korea joint military exercises, which he termed "war games."
The agreement was widely criticized by arms-control specialists for its vagueness: it contained no definition of denuclearization, no timeline, no verification mechanism, and no reference to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty or IAEA safeguards. Supporters argued it opened a diplomatic channel and reduced the immediate risk of armed conflict.
Singapore was followed by a second Trump–Kim summit in Hanoi (27–28 February 2019), which ended without agreement after disputes over sanctions relief versus the scope of dismantlement at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, and a brief encounter at the Panmunjom Joint Security Area on 30 June 2019. Working-level talks in Stockholm in October 2019 collapsed. By 2020 the DPRK had resumed short-range missile testing, and longer-range ICBM tests resumed in 2022.
For MUN and research purposes, the Singapore Summit is a key case study in personalist summit diplomacy, the limits of joint statements without verification regimes, and the interaction between unilateral diplomacy and the UN Security Council sanctions architecture (Resolutions 2270, 2321, 2371, 2375, 2397).
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At the 12 June 2018 Singapore Summit, Trump and Kim signed a joint statement in which the DPRK committed to "work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."