Is Trump Administration Shifting from Denuclearization to Removing North Korea’s ICBM Threat?

At least one South Korean expert believes that the Trump administration has shifted its focus to getting rid of North Korea’s ICBMs instead of trying to get them to denuclearize:

Any agreement that U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un make at their second summit must state that “complete denuclearization” of the communist nation is the two sides’ ultimate goal, an expert said Monday.
Hong Hyun-ik, a researcher at Sejong Institute, made the case in a report amid concerns in South Korea that the United States might settle for a deal falling short of complete denuclearization as long as threats to the U.S. are removed, for instance by dismantling the North’s long-range missile capabilities.
Adding fuel to such concerns was a remark that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made in a media interview earlier this month that the “security of American people” is the ultimate objective of the U.S. in its dealings with the North.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but as I have been saying for years, the Kim regime is not going to denuclearize. The best they are willing to do is sign up for “pretend denuclearization“. However, verifiably eliminating the ICBM threat is a more achievable goal because the Kim regime has not mastered this technology yet and may be more willing to give it up.

However, the Trump administration should also be trying to get rid of the North’s Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBM) as well because those are the category of missiles that threaten the US territory of Guam.