Vietnam: Security will be at ‘maximum level’ for Trump-Kim summit

Vietnamese officials are promising top-level security for this week’s summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which will take place Wednesday and Thursday in Hanoi. 

“Security will be at the maximum level,” Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Hoai Trung told reporters, according to The Associated Press.

Vietnam had about 10 days to prepare for the summit, the AP noted. The location of the meeting had been widely reported before Trump confirmed it in his State of the Union speech on Feb. 5.

{mosads}The country has instituted a traffic ban along the possible route Kim will take upon his arrival, the AP reported. The closure will affect a 105-mile stretch of highway from the border with China to Hanoi. Meanwhile, hundreds of soldiers were stationed near the train station where Kim could arrive.

The head of Vietnam’s information ministry said the country expected roughly 3,000 journalists from 40 different countries to jet in for the summit, the AP reported. 

This week marks the second meeting between Trump and Kim as the U.S. continues its push to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

The president first met with Kim last June in Singapore. While Trump hailed the event as an unmitigated success and declared North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat, critics noted that the summit produced no concrete commitments or timelines for Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. 

Trump has expressed optimism about the upcoming meeting, touting his relationship with Kim and emphasizing that he believes North Korea could emerge as an economic power if it agrees to denuclearize.