Editor's Note: (Samantha Vinograd is a CNN National Security Analyst. She served on President Obama's National Security Council from 2009 to 2013 and at the Treasury Department under President Bush. Follow her @sam_vinograd. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. )
(CNN) Every week, I offer a glimpse of the kind of intelligence assessments that are likely to come across the desk of the President of the United States. Modeled on the President's Daily Briefing, or PDB, which the director of national intelligence prepares for the President almost daily, my Presidential Weekly Briefing focuses on the topics and issues the President needs to know to make informed decisions.
Here's this week's briefing:
With just weeks until the summit in Singapore, and ahead of your meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday, we assess that the North Koreans believe you are convinced that the meeting must move forward -- despite North Korea's change in rhetoric, tone and position.
Kim likely heard your previous remarks indicating that you wouldn't meet with him if you didn't think it was going to be "fruitful," but after you publicly announced the date and location of the summit, Kim may think you're locked in and try to push you around ahead of the meeting.
In fact, Kim may already feel victorious in light of recent US policy shifts:
Vladimir Putin is likely enjoying watching the United States and our allies disagree over major policy decisions like Iran. He'll probably try to manipulate any distance between us. He's been relatively quiet on our decision to withdraw from the Iran deal and on efforts to negotiate with North Korea, but silence could be deadly. Putin is likely working behind the scenes to achieve his overall mission of undermining our credibility. And he's been busy.
After Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif's meetings with our allies last week on the Iran deal, Iran is probably feeling some more pressure. The clock on US sanctions is ticking, and Total announced that it's putting its $2 billion gas project in Iran on hold. The Iranian regime will likely try to get our European allies to pressure us for sanctions waivers or, at the least, some kind of public statements that can assuage companies' concerns over ongoing business in Iran.
If their efforts don't bear fruit soon, we will probably see Iranians use threats about what will happen if they aren't able to continue participating in the global economy, to some degree. We haven't heard much from China and Russia yet on how they're reacting to our Iran deal pullout, but if things don't go well with the Europeans, we should expect Iran to try to leverage Xi Jinping and Putin.
This is all a win for Putin. Your withdrawal from the Iran deal, Mr. President, pits you against your allies, which is positive for Putin because a more isolated US is a weaker US to him. And, if Iranian oil does go offline, that's a win for the Russian economy because the price of oil will rise, and oil revenues are the foundation of Russia's economy. The recent oil price rally means that Russia is expected to run a budget surplus this year for the first time since 2011.
The Venezuelan regime staged another show on Sunday and is calling it a presidential election. We don't need a vote count: President Nicolas Maduro will win, and we assess that he will use this rubber stamp of a so-called election victory to tighten his grip domestically and to try to blame the United States for the political and economic crises plaguing Venezuela.
Struggling with severe food and medicine shortages, soaring crime rates and extreme hyperinflation, 1.6 million people fled the country between 2015-2017. It's going from bad to worse, and we should expect the situation to continue to deteriorate.
Maduro has one challenger, Henri Falcon, but the main opposition coalition in Venezuela is boycotting the election, claiming that it's rigged. And, even if the regime goes through some of the motions of an election process, we've already said we won't recognize the results of election -- along with several other countries -- because they are not transparent or fair.
On Friday, we announced new sanctions against the Maduro regime over links to the drug trade and corruption. These sanctions build on previous measures tied to Venezuela's human rights abuses, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms and more. Maduro used this as an excuse to turn the spotlight on the US and "imperialist aggressions," saying that the United States was trying to "sabotage the elections."
Maduro and his cronies are likely waiting to see if the United States imposes more sanctions on Venezuela, including efforts to curtail its oil exports. We assess that China and India, which account for 40% of Venezuela's oil sales, will encourage the US not to take any drastic moves, particularly in light of a reduction in Iranian oil sales.