Trump’s North Korea Summit Schedule Was Released & It’s Honestly Pretty Sparse

Details about the upcoming summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un have been almost as sparse as details about life in the North Korean dictatorship itself, but a big one has just leaked out. Trump's North Korea summit schedule has officially hit the news, and while it doesn't give up much about the two leaders will actually talk about, it does describe in broad strokes how the historic meeting will go.

According to a schedule released on Twitter, Trump and Kim will begin their meeting at 9 a.m. Singapore time with a public greeting. The one-to-one talks will begin 15 minutes later and will last for 45 minutes. Although it's not directly specified on the public schedule, it seems as though this 45 minutes will be the only time that the two will spend alone (with at least one interpreter, as experts have guessed that Kim doesn't speak fluent English, and Trump certainly does not speak Korean).

The work is then set to continue at 10 a.m., when the two leaders will be joined by their aides for an "expanded bilateral meeting." This will then continue over a meal, when the "working lunch with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un" begins at 11:30 a.m.

According to the schedule, the working lunch will end sometime before 4 p.m., at which point Trump will "[participate] in a media availability." Worth noting is the fact that Trump is listed as appearing in the press conference without Kim, whereas the other meetings are clearly listed as happening "with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un." It's not terribly surprising, though, because Kim's position as the dictator of a totalitarian regime (as described by the BBC) means that his press appearances are always very carefully scripted.

The entire summit will take part on Sentosa Island, a former pirate base that is now a high-end resort island, as ABC News described it. The schedule also states that the "out-of-town travel pool" will be a part of each meeting, which implies that they're trying to keep at least some of it open to the press. The extent to which journalists will have access to the full contents of the meeting, though, is still unclear. If they are indeed allowed to listen in and report on the contents of all of the meetings, then the public could start hearing what's going on very quickly.

According to CNBC, the White House released a statement saying that the preliminary talks were going quickly enough for them to actually shorten the schedule. Now, Trump will be leaving Singapore earlier than previously planned, at around 8 p.m. Singapore time. That still leaves several hours of unplanned time, as Trump's 4 p.m. media availability won't last that entire time.

Even with this skeleton schedule, though, it's still very unclear what exactly the talks will include and what proposals Trump will be bringing to the table. NBC News reported that Trump won't bring up North Korea's human rights abuses, despite the fact that it's a serious contender for the most repressive regime on the planet. According to Time, they'll be discussing "issues of mutual concern," like the stiff existing sanctions against North Korea and the Hermit Kingdom's developing nuclear program. These are serious issues, though, and considering the fact that the two countries do not have diplomatic relations now, the two camps will have a lot to discuss on that one day — even if they say that the talks have been going well so far.

This summit between Trump and Kim has approached very quickly for both sides, and now the schedule has confirmed that it will go by very quickly as well. It only remains to be seen whether the two sides can accomplish anything during the short time that they'll be meeting with each other in person.