The U.S. is trying to find a discreet way to pay for Kim Jong Un’s hotel during the summit

National Security
The U.S. is trying to find a discreet way to pay for Kim Jong Un’s hotel during the summit

Members of the media wait along a road next to the Fullerton Hotel on May 31, 2018. (Nicholas Yeo/AFP/Getty Images)
By John Hudson
June 1 at 6:46 PM
Email the author
SINGAPORE — At an island resort off the coast of Singapore, U.S. event planners are working day and night with their North Korean counterparts to set up a summit designed to bring an end to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

But a particularly awkward logistical issue remains unresolved, according to two people familiar with the talks. Who’s going to pay for Kim Jong Un’s hotel stay?

The prideful but cash-poor pariah state requires that a foreign country foot the bill at its preferred lodging: the Fullerton, a magnificent neoclassical hotel near the mouth of the Singapore River, where just one presidential suite costs more than $6,000 per night.

The mundane but diplomatically fraught billing issue is just one of numerous logistical concerns being hammered out between two teams led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and Kim’s de facto chief of staff, Kim Chang Son, as they strive toward a June 12 meeting.

After weeks of uncertainty, President Trump called off the summit last week, blaming “open hostility” from North Korea. But a flurry of diplomacy across two continents got the meeting back on track, and Trump announced Friday that he will attend as initially planned.


When it comes to paying for lodging at North Korea’s preferred five-star luxury hotel, the United States is open to covering the costs, the two people said, but it’s mindful that Pyongyang may view a U.S. payment as insulting. As a result, U.S. planners are considering asking the host country of Singapore to pay for the North Korean delegation’s bill.

2:35
Trump says North Korea summit is back on, will be June 12 in Singapore
President Trump said that his summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is back on after Oval Office meeting with senior regime official. (The Washington Post)

“It is an ironic and telling deviation from North Korea’s insistence on being treated on an ‘equal footing,’ ” said Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Still, the heavily sanctioned and isolated regime has a long history of making bold monetary demands.

[Trump reinstates summit with Kim Jong Un for June 12 in Singapore]

During the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea set aside $2.6 million to cover travel accommodations for a North Korean cheering squad, an art troupe and other members of the visiting delegation.

At the same Games, the International Olympic Committee paid for 22 North Korean athletes to travel to the event.


The Fullerton, a magnificent neoclassical hotel in the central business district, is the preferred lodging of the North Korean officials staying in Singapore. (John Hudson/TWP)
In 2014, when then-U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. visited North Korea to retrieve two prisoners, his North Korean hosts served him an “elaborate 12-course Korean meal,” the veteran intelligence official said, but then insisted that he pay for it.

“These norms were laid in the early 2000s, when Seoul’s so-called ‘sunshine policy’ took off,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, an expert on Korea at Tufts University, referring to a policy of rapprochement associated with former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung. “North Korea can build nukes and ICBMs, but claim they are too poor to pay for foreign travel costs.”