Poll: The American jury's still out on the Singapore summit

US President Donald Trump, right, reaches to shakes hands with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Capella resort on Sentosa Island in Singapore. Photo / AP

In the aftermath of his meeting with Kim Jong Un, US President Donald Trump declared that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat.

Americans have a more measured view, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. But their impressions of what happened in Singapore are nonetheless more positive than pre-summit attitudes earlier in the northern spring.

The President and the North Korean dictator signed a statement that commits to the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, which is the goal of the US in negotiations that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week he hopes will be concluded before the end of Trump's first term in the White House.

The summit agreement lacked specificity in terms of that timetable or more critically the outline of the verification programme North Korea is prepared to accept.

Nor does the document speak to what could be gaps in how each side defines complete denuclearisation. Still, the document and the optics were enough for Trump to put his own stamp of interpretation on the history-making meeting, calling the summit a full success.

Americans aren't ready to agree, according to the Post-ABC poll. A majority of 55 per cent say it is too early to tell whether the summit was a success for the US and an almost identical majority (56 per cent) say it was too early to tell whether it was a success for North Korea.

About 1 in 5 (21 per cent) say it was a success for the US, and nearly 3 in 10 (29 per cent) say it was a success for North Korea. And 16 per cent say it was not a success for the US, and a mere 5 per cent say it wasn't a success for the North Koreans. The net positive margin on what the summit means for North Korea extends across partisan lines.

The Post-ABC poll was conducted last week among a random national sample of 495 adults reached on landlines and cellphones. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

The denuclearization deal with North Korea is being praised and celebrated all over Asia. They are so happy! Over here, in our country, some people would rather see this historic deal fail than give Trump a win, even if it does save potentially millions & millions of lives!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2018

Trump drew some criticism after the summit for appearing to make concessions without getting much in return. Among the concessions was a decision to halt joint military exercises with South Korea, long a staple of the relationship between the two countries. Trump also used language often employed by North Korea to describe those exercises, calling them "provocative" and "war games."

Beyond that, because this was the first meeting between a sitting US president and the leader of North Korea, the summit was seen as a public relations coup for Kim, who was elevated onto an international stage and who, despite having a brutal human rights record at home, was treated to smiles and words of praise by Trump during the summit and afterward.

The survey found the public gives Trump the benefit of the doubt, narrowly, on how to interpret the give-and-take of the summit. Just over 4 in 10 (41 per cent) say Trump made reasonable compromises at the summit, while about a third (34 per cent) say he gave away too much to the North Korean leader. The other 25 per cent offered no judgment about the bargaining that took place.

Partisan leanings coloured these perceptions. Seven in 10 Republicans say the President made reasonable compromises compared with 11 per cent who say he gave away too much. In contrast, almost half of all Democrats (49 per cent) say he gave away too much, compared with 17 per cent who say he made reasonable compromises. Independents are evenly split, 39 per cent to 39 per cent, on the question.

Breaking News: President Trump’s path to meeting Kim Jong-un involved secret spy meetings, talks between entrepreneurs, and an unreported role for Jared Kushnerhttps://t.co/WpTvkL7Ijj

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 17, 2018

In the early months of Trump's presidency, North Korea's missile tests and sabre-rattling rhetoric from the President - he warned that Kim's regime would be subjected to "fire and fury" if it used nuclear weapons - heightened tensions dramatically.

In September, a Post-ABC poll showed a record high 70 per cent said North Korea posed a serious threat, with majorities doubting Kim and Trump would act responsibly. Notwithstanding Trump's post-summit assurances that the threat is gone, the public is taking a wait-and-see approach to the future.

The new poll finds about 4 in 10 (42 per cent) say the summit makes the long-term possibility of war with North Korea less likely, while 39 per cent say it makes no difference. A modest 11 per cent say they think it makes the long-term chances of war more likely.

Once again, Republicans express far more optimism about this than do Democrats or independents, with about two-thirds of those who identify with the GOP saying they think the chances of war have been diminished.

Trump: I want 'my people' to 'sit up at attention' like in North Korea https://t.co/o0ZS0TDWxc

— POLITICO (@politico) June 17, 2018

The summit did result in a shift in attitudes on the question of whether North Korea will ever give up its nuclear weapons.

In April, 30 per cent of Americans said it was likely that there would be an agreement leading to that outcome, while 67 per cent said it was unlikely. In the new Post-ABC survey, 41 per cent now say they think it is likely as a result of the summit, while 53 per cent say it is unlikely.

The sceptics about North Korea's eventual willingness to give up its nuclear programme have softened somewhat in their view of what could happen. Of the 53 per cent who say it's unlikely Kim's regime will give up those weapons, 27 per cent say it is "somewhat" unlikely - about the same as earlier. But the number of those who say it is "very" unlikely has dropped from 42 per cent in April to 25 per cent today.