Since U.S. ties improved, Vietnam's growth has surged. "North Korea is now like Vietnam in the past. They are looking for new ways to get out of their isolated situation," says a Vietnamese analyst.
Days before President Trump and Kim Jong Un are to meet in Vietnam, satellite images show no river ice downstream from the key North Korean facility at Yongbyon — a sign the reactor may be running.
Under the agreement, South Korea will contribute about $890 million a year for the U.S. military presence — less than the billion dollars or more the U.S. had requested.
The U.S. and North Korea will meet in Vietnam, Trump told lawmakers during the State of the Union address. The countries will work toward details of denuclearization missing from last year's meeting.
Kim Jong Un praised Trump's "unusual determination" to come to an agreement. A second summit, expected around late February, could be a chance for the two countries to work out crucial details.
Joel Wit, a former State Department official who played a key role in negotiating and implementing the 1994 denuclearization deal with North Korea, writes about important lessons.
NPR's Mara Liasson joins Lulu Garcia-Navarro to discuss the president's negotiation-by-spectacle strategy on the shutdown, and to examine the latest moves in the Mueller investigation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping invited Kim for the four-day visit. The two leaders could use the visit to coordinate ahead of a second summit between the U.S. and North Korea.