At around 8:00 P.M. on June 11, I got in a taxi from Woodlands to my condo in Bukit Timah. The two places are quite far apart, but the ride never takes more than 30 minutes. Maybe on a rainy day it would be 45. On that day, however, it took me an hour and 45 minutes, for the leader of the free world had just landed in Singapore. As we neared Bukit Timah, the traffic came to a complete halt. I peered out the window and saw a police officer placed every 100 yards.  The roads were fortified with yellow barricades and temporary speed breakers were placed in order to slow down the already inching traffic. President Donald Trump had just arrived at the Shangri-La, which was half a mile from Bukit Timah.

The lengthy car ride was filled with sighs from both me and my driver, who prodded me to make small talk.  “Ah the traffic seems quite bad, how long do you think it will take?” I was well aware that he had just as much information as I did, and couldn’t possibly even begin to predict. “Ah never know ah,” he continued, “you know American President Trump landing today.”

I responded “Yeah, I think he already landed and is headed to Shang-“

“Ay-yah! Look at this car, cutting me!” The driver interrupted. He honked a few times at the maroon Honda that attempted to overtake him.

A few minutes passed and he looked up at his mirror and asked “So you are American is it?”

“Hmm? oh…yes,” I replied. I got this question quite often, because a thick Texan accent tends to stick out in any situation.

“So you are happy that your president is here?” he asked.

I nodded in complacence.

“Singapore is making pure history I tell you…” he said proudly. “Such a small nation that started off as part of Malaysia has now cemented its identity across the globe. For it to host two eccentric leaders of two nuclear powers? That is something.”

While a tone of reverence was apparent in his words about Singapore, there seemed to be some disappointment when it came to the financing of the summit itself. Singapore spent 20 million dollars to host the summit- and while that may not seem like much, that money could’ve been repurposed into means more beneficial to citizens themselves. Although Singapore may be an extremely developed country with a growing GDP, 26% of local Singaporeans still live beneath the poverty line on meager, inconsistent wages.

As we neared the Shangri-La, I saw numerous people from various nationalities lined up outside of the hotel.  Most were eager to catch a glimpse of the president, but when it came to the summit itself, reactions were not as enthusiastic. Many locals I talked to expressed that this deal between North Korea and the United States didn’t seem to have many guarantees in place to denuclearize North Korea- and they aren’t wrong. Much of what was discussed during this deal involved numerous military concessions from the United States, to the benefit of both North Korea and China. As for North Korea, no definite steps were taken to denuclearize, and the deal itself lacked specificity. The Trump administration has long been playing a chicken game. Donald Trump would admonish and condemn Kim Jong-un on Twitter, while in turn the Korean leader conducted nuclear tests to prove his force. In this game, the most irrational player wins- whoever concedes first is the loser. This summit seemed to be a drastic 180 from the tactics Trump had previously employed, because the US did concede militarily.

One Singaporean International Relations student I talked to brought up the fact that “the supposed amazing deal that was signed between both states was less than a thousand words, where else the Iran deal that was carried out by the Obama administration involved three years of prep and was over 400 pages!”

If this was a game of blackjack, the country that got 21 is undoubtedly Singapore, with China in a close second place. While Singapore is a first-world country, its power remains relatively unknown outside of Asia. People often overlook Singapore’s economic capacity because of its minuscule size. This deal has given Singapore a golden ticket to the table of world powers. As for China, the ability to get US troops out of its vicinity once again reinforces China’s strong presence in the region.

While discussion is better than war, this summit did little to ensure that North Korea will abide by a plan of denuclearization. Another local I interviewed said that “North Korea has always lost everyone’s trust. North Korea is a dictatorial regime which could be compared to that of a cult- how do we know that North Korea will abide? How can we trust that this is nothing but a façade from the North Korean government?”

There is no way to know.

It is all up to the Trump administration to set plans in place that specify steps that need to be taken to get North Korea on a path of denuclearization. Hopefully it doesn’t come at a greater cost than it already has.