Xinhua News Agency reported that on December 16, the director of the Policy Research Office of the Institute of American Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Korea made a statement, and the Korean Central News Agency published the contents of the statement: In the six months after the meeting between the leaders of North Korea and the United States in Singapore, the US Secretary of State and other senior politicians maliciously slandered North Korea every day, and also concocted various excuses such as money laundering and cyber attacks. Recently, the United States even included North Korean leaders on the US sanctions list on the grounds of so-called "human rights issues." Such an approach is a "provocative act." The article warns the United States that it would be the biggest misjudgment to think that strengthening sanctions and pressure will force North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. The United States and North Korea may return to the past state of "exchange of fire", and the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula may also be lost. Experts pointed out that North Korea intends to tell the United States that if it goes too far, it will bear the consequences. North Korea is not afraid of trouble.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury once again announced sanctions on three senior North Korean officials on the 12th, namely Choe Ryong Hae, Director of the Organization and Guidance Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Park Kwang-ho, Director of the Propaganda Department of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and Chung Kyung-taek, Minister of National Security of North Korea. Sanctions include confiscating all of their assets in the United States and banning them from conducting any financial transactions that occur in the United States.

This call brought North Korea and the United States, which had already stalled negotiations, into a deadlock again. Since US Secretary of State Pompeo’s visit to North Korea on October 7, the United States and North Korea have not formally conducted relevant negotiations. There is news that a long-range missile research and development base in North Korea is believed to have undergone a large-scale expansion. The outside world is worried that if the deadlock in the US-North Korea dialogue continues, the denuclearization negotiation process will lose momentum. However, this week, the United States and North Korea will have an opportunity for contact: US Special Representative for North Korea Policy Biegun will visit South Korea this week and co-chair the second meeting of the South Korea-US Working Group on North Korea. The content of the discussion will be the lack of progress in the US-North Korea denuclearization negotiations.

The prospect of a U.S.-North Korea summit meeting is unknown, and the possibility of another meeting between North and South Korea leaders within this year is also slim. Recently, a senior official of South Korea's Blue House revealed that the Presidential Office has internally determined that Kim Jong-un may not be able to visit Seoul this year. This is also the first time that Blue House officials have made it clear that Kim Jong-un will not be able to return to the country within the year. Because, despite the continued U.S. sanctions, North Korea has not given a definite reply so far, and there are only less than two weeks left in December.

U.S. President Trump has also recently made a new voice on the situation on the peninsula. On the 14th, Trump said via Twitter, "Many people have asked me, how are our negotiations with North Korea going? I always answer, we are in no rush. There is no rush at all. North Korea has the potential to achieve great economic success. Kim Jong Un understands this better than anyone else, and he will not let this opportunity slip away."

No matter how the relations between the United States and North Korea and North Korea develop, North Korea's progress in denuclearization is obvious to the international community. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that after on-site inspections, it was determined that North Korea has completed the dismantling of 11 guard posts in the Demilitarized Zone. The demilitarized zone about 4 kilometers wide on both sides of the 38th parallel was once regarded as "the most dangerous place in the world." During the "Wenjin Summit" in September this year, North Korea and South Korea reached an agreement to cease all hostile acts and ease military tensions between the north and the south. On December 16, South Korea’s Ministry of Administration and Security released a plan to build a 456-kilometer hiking route across the Korean Peninsula near the Demilitarized Zone to turn the most dangerous place into a peaceful place.