Facing Quagmire in Iran, Trump Turns to a Familiar Face: North Korea’s Kim Jong-un
New York Times · LC · trust 63/100
Seven years ago, President Trump failed to disarm North Korea and walked away. Could the same thing happen with Iran?
Listen · 8:47 min Share full article President Trump with Kim Jong-un of North Korea at the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea in 2019. Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times By David E. Sanger and Anton Troianovski
David E. Sanger has covered the North Korean nuclear program since the early 1990s. Anton Troianovski previously served as Moscow bureau chief and wrote on the state of Russia’s alliance with the North.
That was in Mr. Trump’s first term. Not only did the diplomatic effort fail, but Mr. Kim immediately hit the accelerator on his program and today possesses roughly 60 nuclear weapons, by some estimates, as well as missiles that appear capable of reaching the United States — exactly the combination Mr. Trump had vowed to dismantle.
For months now, proliferation experts have questioned whether Mr. Trump could also end up walking away from his efforts to check Iran’s nuclear program — especially now that he appears to be more focused on getting the Strait of Hormuz open than on dealing with Iran’s stockpiles of uranium, which are buried under rubble after the United States bombed them in June 2025.
Stymied in Iran, Mr. Trump is increasingly turning his sights back to North Korea, even though analysts see little hope of quickly dismantling that country’s growing nuclear arsenal.
Mr. Trump’s social media declaration on Sunday night, praising Mr. Kim and publicly ordering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to diminish America’s role in an annual military exercise with South Korea, one of America’s allies in the Pacific, appeared intended to signal that he wants to resume negotiations. A day later, it remained unclear just how the Pentagon would scale back its role in the 11-day exercise, and a one-line statement sent to reporters by the Pentagon press office on Monday afternoon did not provide any clarity.
“The Department of War is actively working on executing the commander in chief’s directive,” the statement said, using the Trump administration’s name for the Department of Defense.
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