Trump-Kim Singapore Summit LIVE: Meet On After Historic Handshake, US Prez Predicts 'Terrific Relationship'

A de-nuclearisation deal would be positive for South Korean assets given the possible boost to growth and fading geopolitical risks, analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note

US President Donald Trump is predicting that he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will have "a terrific relationship" as they meet face to face for the first time. Trump said Tuesday after meeting Kim that he's feeling "really great." He says, "We're going to have a great discussion and a terrific relationship." Kim says through an interpreter that it "was not easy to get here" and that there "were obstacles but we overcame them to be here." The two men are expected to meet on their own for the better part of an hour, with only a pair of interpreters in the room. That decision has raised concerns about the risk of holding such a monumental meeting with barely anyone to bear witness.

President Donald Trump ahead of his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un: “I feel really great ... we are gonna have a great discussion and I think, tremendous success” https://t.co/4VsBVdRdJx

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 12, 2018

Three weeks ago, the summit seemed doomed. Trump said on May 24 he was scrapping it after threats by North Korea to pull out over what it saw as confrontational remarks by U.S. officials demanding unilateral disarmament. North Korea had earlier criticised U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, who had called for North Korea to quickly give up its nuclear arsenal in a deal that would mirror Libya's abandonment of its programme for weapons of mass destruction. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was deposed and killed by NATO-backed militants in 2011 after halting his nascent nuclear programme and North Korea has long rejected any suggestion of a Libya model. Trump later dismissed the Libya model. Instead his spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, spoke of "the President Trump model".  "He’s going to run this the way he sees fit," Sanders told Fox News.

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands ahead of their meeting at Capella Hotel in Singapore on Tuesday.

BREAKING: President Trump and Kim Jong Un just shook hands ahead of their historic summit. It’s the first time leaders of the US and North Korea have met https://t.co/8OX2UblAwL pic.twitter.com/SCzJ9VGdze

— CNN (@CNN) June 12, 2018

A successful summit could also herald momentous changes in the security landscape of northeast Asia, in a similar way to how the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 changed Europe. For China, peace on the Korean peninsula would benefit regional development, especially that of its northeastern rustbelt. While China has broadly supported the summit, it will want to protect its interests. North Korea has always been a useful buffer between China and US forces in South Korea. Japan will also be watching with ambivalence - happy to see the sabre-rattling ending but worried its security might be sacrificed in Trump's rush to neutralise the North Korean threat to the United States.

Trump and Kim could agree on a declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War, the fire in which his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, forged the North Korean state. The war was concluded with a truce, not a peace treaty, but a treaty will also have to include China, which was party to the armistice. The young Kim is reviled as an international pariah over the 2017 murder in Malaysia of his half-brother, and the execution of hundreds of officials, including his uncle, for suspected disloyalty. But he will win legitimacy with the handshake.

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are sharing a historic handshake as they meet for the first time. The two clasped hands for a long while Tuesday as they posed for photos in front of a row of U.S. and North Korean flags. Trump then directed Kim to walk down a hallway, where they briefly spoke. It's the first ever meeting between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean leader. Trump and Kim arrived not long ago on Singapore's Sentosa Island, the site of their unprecedented summit. It's aimed at settling a standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal. The two will huddle alone for roughly 45 minutes before being joined by aides for a larger meeting and working lunch. Trump has said he'll know within minutes whether a deal can be made.

The dollar jumped to a 3-week top on Tuesday while Asian shares started cautiously as investors were hopeful of a positive outcome from a highly anticipated US-Korea summit, which could set the stage for ending a nuclear stand-off on the Korean peninsula.  Japan's Nikkei climbed 0.8 percent to the highest in three weeks and South Korean shares added 0.1 percent. Australia's benchmark index was a tad firmer while New Zealand eased 0.3 percent.  That left MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan a touch softer at 573.31.

Whatever the results, it will be one of the more unusual summits in recent history as a flamboyant, often erratic US president gets a close-up look at a hereditary socialist despot who sits on a nuclear weapons program.

To protect one of the highest-profile diplomatic events so far this century, Singapore has enlisted the help of its fearsome Nepalese fighters whose large curved knives, according to custom, must "taste blood" whenever they're drawn. Wearing brown berets and equipped with body armor and assault rifles, the elite Gurkha police officers are a conspicuous part of the enveloping security force Singapore has deployed for Tuesday's summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Oil prices were little changed in early Asian trading on Tuesday as markets awaited the outcome of the summit between Donald Trump and leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. Traders also said they were reluctant to take on large new positions ahead of a meeting between producer cartel OPEC and some of its allies on June 22. Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were trading at $76.50 per barrel, up 4 cents from their last close. "A positive resolution from Singapore is bullish for stocks," said Greg McKenna, chief market strategist at futures brokerage AxiTrader, and several oil traders said crude futures could also get a lift from such an outcome.

Just hours ahead of his historic summit with Kim Jong Un, Donald Trump lauded his economic policy its impact on the American stock market. Pointing at the recent release of three American hostages and Pyongyang's pledge to refrain from further nuclear or missile tests, Trump hcharged that "these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say!" The United States is demanding that North Korea denuclearise in exchange for security guarantees.

Stock Market up almost 40% since the Election, with 7 Trillion Dollars of U.S. value built throughout the economy. Lowest unemployment rate in many decades, with Black & Hispanic unemployment lowest in History, and Female unemployment lowest in 21 years. Highest confidence ever!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2018

The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers. We have our hostages, testing, research and all missle launches have stoped, and these pundits, who have called me wrong from the beginning, have nothing else they can say! We will be fine!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 11, 2018

Both Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un have arrived at Singapore's Sentosa Island for their historic face-to-face meeting. The two men are expected to share a handshake before they meet alone with a pair of interpreters for roughly 45 minutes while their entourages wait nearby. After the intimate huddle, they're scheduled to hold a larger meeting and working lunch. Trump's chief of staff, national security adviser and secretary of state are among those expected to join. The meeting is the first sit-down between a sitting US president and North Korean leader and is meant to settle a standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program. Trump earlier defended his decision to meet with Kim, tweeting that North Korea has already released three detainees and that missile tests have halted.

The pair — Kim Jong-Un in his thirties and consolidating his dictatorship, Donald Trump in his seventies and struggling to bend Washington to his impetuous will — are unlikely protagonists, both instantly recognisable and larger-than-life. But their work this week is deadly serious. Washington and Pyongyang are still technically at war, even if the mortars, carbines and gunships of the bloody 1950s conflict have long since fallen silent. And the totalitarian regime has made rapid progress towards marrying nuclear and missile technology that would put Los Angeles, New York and Washington within striking distance of a nuclear holocaust. The United States says that is unacceptable and will be dealt with, one way or another. The United States says that is unacceptable and will be dealt with, one way or another.

It is a historic meeting for both men — perhaps comparable to president Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China, or Ronald Reagan's summit 1986 with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik. It is potentially legacy-defining — as long as they can disprove critics' fears that the meeting will be more about drama than detail. The North has promised to give up its weapons in the past, while a long history of previous agreements have ultimately foundered. 

The face-to-face with Kim Jong-Un is a far cry from last year when Donald Trump called on the international community to exert "maximum pressure" to buckle the reclusive regime and threatened to unleash "fire and fury like the world has never seen" if Pyongyang continued to threaten the US. For his part, Kim called Trump a "mentally deranged US dotard" and said he would "tame" him, "with fire". That will seem a distant memory later Tuesday amid the palms and whitewashed walls of Singapore's ultra-exclusive Capella Hotel, where the two men will walk towards each other and then sit down for an initial half-day of meetings with ramifications for the entire world.

US President Donald Trump has arrived at Singapore’s Sentosa Island for a historic summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, the first ever between leaders of the two countries. The motorcade of the North Korean leader, too, has left for the island from a hotel in Singapore. Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un will make history when they shake hands and negotiate to end a decades-old nuclear stand-off. The extraordinary summit -- unthinkable only months ago -- comes after the two nuclear-armed foes appeared on the verge of conflict late last year as they slung personal insults and Kim conducted nuclear and missile tests. In a series of tweets early Tuesday morning Singapore time, Trump indicated that summit preparations were "going well and quickly".