robert: a breakthrough. after months of insults and threats, president trump agrees to bilateral talks with north korea. i'm robert costa. inside the president's high-stakes diplomatic gamble. tonight onin "washon week." >> i explained to president trump that his ldership and his maximum pressure policy together with international solidarity moved us to this juncture.ro rt: president trump prepares for an historic face-to-face meeting with norther korean kim jong-un can he ask the dictator to dismantle his nuclear program? tweetrites in a tweet, great progress being made but sanctions will be made until an agreement is needed.

meeting being planned. plus, the long-standing rules of global trailed are being upended as mr. trump signoff on new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. ignoring calls from republicans and allies. the president remains defiant. president trump: the actions we're taking today are not a matter ofhoice. they're a matter of necessity for our security. robert: we discuss it all with kayla tausche of cnbc, peter baker of "the new york times." kimberly atkins of the "boston herald"nd manu raju of cnn. >> w this is "washingtk." funding is provided by -- >>their leadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges

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charity and nourishing the common good. the eths and excellence in journalism foundation. koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridgg cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for public body contrasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> once again, from washington, moderator robert costa. robert: good evening. a stunning turn of events in u.s. diplomacy this week, as president trump, who has threatened north korea with fire and fury and called itseader little rocket man, semied ano invitation meet with kimberly atkins -- kim jeong country and discuss the rog nation's nuclear program. theha details of submit remain to be determined and -- summit remain to be determined and there was quick criticism and cheers. but the decision itself, aspe

r manfredo wrote in today's "new york times" was "shocking and not surprising." mr. trump's decision to do what no other sitting president has done reflects an audacious and supremely self-confident approach to nerble internatnal crearms. be it is middle east pales or 23eu8d agreements, mr. trump has repeatedly claim that he n achieve what has eincluded -- eluded every other resident of the white house through his own personality. a grand gesture from president trump but what's the plan? peter: i think he's having a good time. this week he managedis to sur everybody, used the word stunning. he loves to be unpribble predictable. ood jobs numbersful he loved signing the trade tariffs. for him this is a chance to get back on and carom the narrative and the narrative is a guy who's breaking chins and h

doing things other presidents didn't do. what happens here is mump harder. easy to say yes, i'llee with you but when, where? what kind of preparions do you do? we've never had a president meet with a sitting north korean leader and we don't have presidents meet with these kinds of leaders in these circumstances. we have yet to see how far it's going to go. robert: kayla, you were at the white house when the south korean diplomats cameound t the message. president trump quickly accepted. what was it like? >> it was a little bit of mayhem to be on site there becauhe president came into the briefing room, the first time ever teesed this major announcement in a reality show time of wing and -- way ands then he willing about the west wing. some reporters were going up to him. he was being counseled by the vice president and you saw the securityhuling in and out

quickly out of the president's autopsy and wther they were going to make the commitment to take thiseeng. it was incredibly stressful fror aorting stammed point and i can only imagine how it was on the other sideoo of those as well. robert: big moments, kim. but when you look at history, so many presidents have tried and they've tried and failed with north korea. presidnt delint i 1994, the nuclear freeze. george w. bus talking about the access of evil, including north korea in that what does president trump think he can do to be better from -- different from his predecessors. >> one thing president trump does not lack is hubris in the bleach he can do things better than any other president. but as you point out, there this is a difficult thing to do. a lot of presidents who are surrounded by a lot of smartut people who a lot of time and

e. in trying to negotiate some sort of deal with north korea have walked away with no deal. north korea has its own agenda, whether it's help with oil. but the one thing at all they're not incentivized at all to do is give up their nukes. that's the o thing kim jong-un sees as protecting that country. especially what happened to cadatchy and husain once they gave their weapons away. so i can't fathom any deal that the president could cut that would make kim jong-un easily walk away from its nuclear arsenal. robert: congressional republicans, they conol the house and the senate and they've been wary but somewhat encouraging about the surprise development.to se lindsay graham said don't try to play him.

itfould be the end o you. >> it was a difficult rope for republicans to walk. as you'll recall, during t obama years they went after him very hard over a lot statements he made. in the 2008 campaign trail he said he would negotiate with foreign leaders without preconditions and he was hammered. t just from republicans but also hillary clinton and what iu donald doing here? essentially negotiatesingou wi preconditions. republicans want to be encouraging. obviously it's more encouraging to do sometng diplomatically but at the same time they don't know where this is going to. peter's earlier point, what you saw at the white house today was that it's a lot easier to say s to a meeting than to actually carry through this meeting. sarah sanders was all over the map aboutxactly what the white house expects out of this meeting.

she said there need to be verifiable and concrete steps that needak to be t before moving forward. she even kept the door open that potentially this may meeting may not happen and then afterwards, an anonymous white house official had to walk all that ck and said it is going to happen. it just means this happened in a hasty matter. robert:hehen you think about preconditions that may be part of this issue, there's al fundamen issue. the kim family going back generations has always had mistrust of the united states be the core of their ideology. what's going to mak it turn around? >> that's the problem for the president. what does he have to give them? can apply what's called maximum pressure at the table but i think you're right. i n't see why the kim family would want to give up what they feel i their own ream leverage. what may would f then

evacuation of american troops, for example, from the pens la. president trump said he wasn't going to talk with kim jeong unless he's denuclearized and he hasn't yet and he's agreed to talk anyway. i think a lot of allies right now, particularly in pan but also south korea are nervous about that. is he going t give a deal that would work against their interests? robert: what do yof makee state of the sanctions? is that what brought kim to the ta >> the best data we have to go off comes out of the china. there are some estimates to say that the north koreancademy, its exports were down about 30% last year. kim jong-un answered the onerous effects they had honor that -- on that country. the fact he would even admit that means that it's reached a

point where maybe he feels somewhat vulnerable. economically, i think there needs to be a comparison perhaps of iran. they need to borrow money, they need to export their goods and access very basic resource they can't get so they're willing to say just about anything but it's actually verifying what they say that will do is so difficult, as the president is now finding out. becaus that's a deal he's also trying to go back and rewrite the fine pri on. robert: that's a good point. what happens if this thing blows up diplomatically? what's the risk for the presidentnd his entire administration? >> we don't know. these are people who just a few short weeks ago were comthring sizes of each other's nuclear buttons. we reall don't know what will come out of this time of bilateral meeting. we don't even know if this meeting will happen. you're talking about the administration folks walking ck

back, going nd forth. the president tweeted today saying the meeting, fit happened. robert: he tweeted right before the show, saying the deal with north korea is very much in the meeting and will be, could be a very good one for the world. time to be dermined. maybesw zerland? >> probably so. the white house suggested today the negotiations really haven't started yet so what deal is it exactly in the making? a lot of questions and two months is not a lot of time to resolve these questions. robert: peter, you wrote today about the enormous and united statesolitics have been shredded apart by president trump. now diplomatic -- is being sleded apartment. this we -- shredded apart? have we seen a president do this? maybe it works. >> people who say why not try

something new because the old ways weren'tng wor fair enough but there are a lot of reasons why people haven't done ithis way. you don't normally start off with the top guy in then otiations. usually you bring in your lower as you first, see what a can agree on. escalate to the higher level. you're starting now backwards. starting with the heads of state and brume whether i -- presumably then they'll hand it off to the lower level goirtors. that could blow upth. e's a lot of risk here. roip >> nothing about this has been normal. when you were there, the south koreans announcing a major n olympics decisr the united states withou the united states making its own public announcement. what a strange situation thatn' think has a precedent whatsoever. robert: we'll have to leave it

there on northrea but president moon of south korea, one of the most intriguingte char in this drama. he has more of a softer stance towards north korea. what a but let's turn to domestic policy and president trump's cision to move forward with new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports despite srong opposition from republicans and u.s. allies who say the move will spark a trade war. the tariffs will go intoct ef in about two weeks, adding 25% to the cost of u.s. imponlts and 10% to aluminum. canada and mexico are exempt fr the initial implementation pending nafta negotiationings. president trump's attachments, to punish countries like china the flooded the global markets. president trump: america will remain open to lowering or move -- removing tariffs for

individual nations as long as we're sure their products no longer threaten our secity. robert: many republicans wanted more targeted efforts. >> i think there is abetter way and that is to go after unfaict trade pes specifically. robert: a big jobs number came out this week. 313 jobs in february were added. unemployment is at 4.1% yet the president seems compelled to move on trailed. wh was the reaction on the market and the world? >> the narcotic aprescription was somewhat muted but the president went with a softer version of what he initially said. you say the harshest version of what you think you ca do, you get critics to come to the table and beg for softening and then when you eventually do it, you have most peoplen board they're working on a deal for

australia possibly to be ex. . he's tying nafta renegotiation. right sizing of trailed deaf sis -- deficits, nato funding all in an effort to get allies and aligned -- robert: sit working with the fact that our allies are aligning with their own sanctions and trailed moves are they just trying to negotiate with the president? >> we saw that in 2002-2003 when presidentgeorge w. bush announced higher tariffs and the w.t.o. overturned that. sensitived a list of goods they were going to levy tariffs on but the w.t.o. overturned the tar riches before that went into place. the europeans are revisiting a lot of those items. o at the endthe day, they are

from extremely pitically sensitive areas. wisconsin, kentucky. you can figure out who they're ying to target there. robert: you look at what's happening in pennsylvania next unique with -- week, a special election for the u.s. house in stee country. was that part of the white house's decision make something >> i'm sure it was. this is a president who, when there is chaos ask things aren't going his way, say wit mueller investigation, he retreats back to hna natst policy that is he campaigned on. thise case of the tariffs, is something he'sed a vo indicated long before his political careerve he bel that a strong u.s. economy depends on protectionism of industries like steel. this is something he feels his political gut is right on. even though republicans were almost unitedly against this plan and there's a lf fear that at a time the republicans would love to be doingvi aory lamb about the tax bill, which is growing more popular.

thes jobs numbers hementing into the midterm, they think that's a winning combination. the president is going to do something which a lot of republicans a afraid might revee things. it's really a tension within the party. robert: democrats seem to be pretty split. >>ve democrats a hard time praising if president, even if they may a hee with on this policy but republicans, they're mostly united against him. you saw the repubcan leadership. paul ryan had muted criticism. mitch mcconnell was pretty quiet but he did criticize on a couple of you did see some chairmen and rank and first time members in e house a senate come out aggressively against this plan.w i thinkt was so significant about this week, this is the first time we've seen a significant policy divide between republicans on capitol hill and the white house really play out in the trump presidency. you've seen some splits over

things he's said butot necessarily on things he's done. this is the first time 've seen that on this tariffs issue. in large part itinoes a the bed rock republican orthodoxy and that's something that the president does not agree with. robert: this is something the president has talked about his whole life on trailed and he' been encouraged by peter navarro, his trade advisors. the more nationalist swing of the white house. you've seen an ideology cal shift, programs. >> forget to new england that gary cohn, his economic advisor revined mostly as a result of this. the president ribbed him saying he's really a globalist but i ke him anyway. he's going to go off and make ah coupledred more million dollars. that's true. gary cohn is a goebelist in a white house where that's word.ered a bad

he's now on the outs and his philosophy is. 's what you and kim said. this is one of the few things the president has -- a core believe -- belief for him. trailed, the idea that'r getting shafted as a country is a bed rock principle for him. robert: people inside the west wing were telling me, they're urging the prident, saying the economy and market is strong but why dt'you feels so necessary to go after theseta ffs? he said he's going after the grievances of his base with the economy. >> they say if you do this you'll erase the good will of your party. he hasata points that show that the naysayers have been wrong in the past. all of the number headlines before the election said if trump wins the markets will plum and the instead they did exactly the opposite.

he can point to that and say show me real dat this is theory, not facts. robert: any legislation on capitol hill to try to bind the president's hand a little bit? >> there's talk of that. jeff flake, the arizona republican is very critical of plans esident, announc to try to prevent the president from moving forward. it's goingo be difficult get through because you're going to need a veto-proof majority. the president is not siphoning that into law and it's not sure thatepublican leadership, given their desire to work with in president -- really, if they want to start a war with this president ahead of a key midterm season. my guess is t republican leadership will try to convince him to back off administratively. and hope this fight will get into the rearview mirror. bert: senator johnson, remember are -- republican from wisconsin is saying go achfter a, not the u.s. allies. >> that's what they're hoping.

robert: we'll have to leave it there. thanks, everybody, for watching. stay tuneduto find how you can support your local pbs station. that in turn supports us. our conversation continues onlionel with the "washingt week" extra, where we'll discuss new developments in the russia probe. you can find it later tonight and all weekend at pbs.or"washington week." i'm robert costa. enjoy the weekend. ♪ >> funding for "washington week" is provided by -- l

>> theeadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges of todayrc and res the technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans. we call them part of our team. >> american cruise lines, proud sponsor of "washington week." >> additional funding is provided by -- newman's own foundation. donating all profits fromwm 's own food products to charity and nourishing the common good. the ethics and excellence in joranism foundation. koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed

to bridging cultural dinchings inur communities. the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you.

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