Singapore offers benefits to Trump and Kim Jong Un

Department of Defense photo

The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and the Republic of Singapore navy frigates RSS Formidable and RSS Stalwart are seen underway in the Singapore Strait.

Singapore is also the regional headquarters for several American companies including Google parent Alphabet, Facebook, Walt Disney Company, Procter & Gamble and Chevron.

The site’s relative neutrality may also insulate the Trump-Kim discussions from surveillance from China, which has played a role in arranging apparently thawed relations between longtime antagonists North Korea and the U.S.

“There is no way you could have these talks in China, as Chinese intelligence would listen to any sidebar conversations Kim and Trump might have,” Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, told CNBC.

China is North Korea’s most crucial ally on the world stage.

Having the summit there also would likely provide better optics for Trump than traveling to the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, between North and South Korea – a location the American president once floated as a possibility.

“It’s better than the American president coming to Kim Jong Un’s doorstep,” Eurasia Group CEO Ian Bremmer said, adding that the first-ever summit between a North Korean leader and a sitting U.S. president is “set up to go well.”