Trump and Moon Speak after Summit; China Considers Sanctions Relief
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Anderson Cooper in Singapore. We're watching the world's reaction to the historic summit between President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un. We have a team of reporters across our -- across the region. Matt Rivers is standing by for reaction in Beijing. First, I want to get to CNN International's diplomatic editor, Nic Robertson, who joins us from Seoul. So, Nic, President Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in spoke today after the summit. What do we know about that conversation and about South Korea's reaction to what emerged here?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, the issue of not -- President Trump saying that it's going to end these big, joint military exercises has been a curious day in a way for President Moon here. He began by telling everyone here that he had had a sleepless night, an indication that he was sort of -- he did have some concerns going into this very important summit. He's been -- he's been praising President Trump through the day. Just after President Trump made that signing with Kim Jong-un, Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, called the foreign minister here. And the nugget in that phone call was, the foreign minister -- South Korean foreign minister said, you know, we would like to have closer cooperation in the future. Then, after that, that's when President Trump made that statement about ending the joint military exercises. And the Blue House here, the president's office, then issued a statement saying, well, we need to kind of figure out precisely what President Trump means here, the accuracy of that and what the intention is behind that. But then this evening, about two hours ago, we heard that President Trump had called President Moon while he was flying back to Washington. The call lasted about 20 minutes. The readout that we've had of that call between President Trump and President Moon doesn't make any mention of those joint military exercises at all. What it does, however, conclude is that it's a foundation for peace, the summit so far. But, again, that very important point that's emerging from the South Korean side is they want more and closer coordination and cooperation with the United States as they move forward. The president, President Moon here, has said that he's willing, you know, to take significant steps to achieve this better relationship between the United States and North Korea. But that strange silence now on the issue of these military exercises, Anderson.</s>COOPER: Yes, I mean, Nic, pretty surprising to hear President Trump call those exercises war games and say that they're provocative.</s>ROBERTSON: It is. And when you consider that, you know, for the people of South Korea, for the governments of South Korea, in the past, these military training exercises, a large scale, they're hugely important. The military forces here are on a fight tonight ready standby. You know, they need to be prepared. Their skills need to be sharp. They need to be able to go into action in large numbers. Why? Because the threat from North Korea is close and its perceived to be real. So, politically, it's been important to have an army that's ready. And for the people of South Korea, important to note, that their army is ready to defend them from the North.</s>COOPER: Nic Robertson in Seoul. Nic, thanks very much. I want to go to CNN's international correspondent Matt Rivers, who is in Beijing. Matt, any reaction so far from China?</s>MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, overall the Chinese government pretty happy with the way things went here in Singapore for a number of different reasons. The government congratulated both parties and they used this summit as a way to bring up the fact that countries could start considering easing sanctions against North Korea, something China never really wanted to do. But it was two big things that the president said. He talked about -- even though it's not on the table at the moment, Anderson, he talked about his willingness to remove troops from the Korean peninsula, U.S. troops there. You know who else wants that? The Chinese government. They have want that had for decades now. They've always felt threatened by that. And then the other thing too would be the war games that President Trump brought up. Military people here, of course, would call them exercises. The Chinese hate those military exercises as much as the North Koreans because those exercises are conducted, not only with North Korea in mind, Anderson, but also with the Chinese. So when you take all of that in totality, a way to ease sanctions, a way to remove troops potentially in the future and stopping these military exercises, if you're an official in Beijing, you're looking at what happened today in Singapore and going, that's not a bad start.</s>COOPER: Matt Rivers, appreciate that. We'll be right back. More news ahead.