Why Trump can’t rekindle the spark with Kim Jong Un
Vox · L · trust 52/100
The president badly wants a meeting with the North Korean leader. But it’s not clear what they have to talk about.
Gift President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un talk before a meeting in the demilitarized zone on June 30, 2019, in Panmunjom, Korea. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images Joshua Keating is a senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. He is the author of the 2018 book Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood , an exploration of border conflicts, unrecognized countries, and changes to the world map. Can President Donald Trump pen a new chapter in his love story with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un?
In Trump’s first term, the two leaders, in Trump’s words, “ fell in love ” after exchanging letters and held three historic meetings, but failed to make much progress toward the goal of denuclearizing the heavily armed hermit state.
Now, Trump appears to be trying to recapture the magic, reportedly urging aides to set up a meeting with Kim as soon as this fall. This news comes soon after Trump’s Truth Social post on Sunday announcing he had ordered the US military to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with ally South Korea in part because it would send “a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful” — North Korea.
Trump has claimed, without elaborating, that Kim has responded to this overture, but there’s been no public response from Pyongyang yet.
Trump’s outreach didn’t come entirely out of nowhere. Trump has made clear since the beginning of his term that he would like to meet with Kim again , and there was speculation that a meeting might happen when Trump traveled to South Korea for a summit last fall. North Korea’s UN Mission in New York has also rebuffed several attempts by US officials to deliver a personal letter from Trump seeking to restart dialogue.
In the midst of an unpopular conflict with Iran that seems unlikely to end in anything resembling a victory, it makes sense that Trump might be reaching back to what he sees as one of the foreign policy high points of his first term. “Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “I understand him. He understands me.”
Beyond reconnecting with an old friend, it’s not entirely clear what Trump actually wants out of North Korea. But if his goal is a new diplomatic breakthrough, that will be even harder than it was the first time: The country is a much different place than it was the last time the two leaders sat down and even if they were to meet again, Kim seems even less likely to make real concessions.
Analysts believe North Korea possesses around 50 nuclear weapons with enough fissile material to build 40 more. It has missiles that are theoretically capable of reaching the US mainland . There was a time when the North Koreans were willing to at least discuss giving up their program in exchange for sanctions relief and major concessions on US military support to South Korea, but that time is probably over, partly thanks to Trump’s own actions .
“There is no chance that North Korea is going to denuclearize. Zero chance,” said Joseph Yun, a veteran US-North Korea negotiator who recently served as acting US ambassador to South Korea. “They have seen what happened to Iran. They have seen what happened to Ukraine. The way they see it, their nuclear weapons are what protects them.” Last year, the country’s official news agency dismissed denuclearization as an “ unrealizable pipe dream .”
On top of that, North Korea is in a much stronger negotiating position than it was the last time these two leaders met for a photo op.
“It’s a very different North Korea now. It’s stronger geopolitically, and Kim is stronger domestically.”
In 2018, North Korea was heavily isolated and struggling under an international sanctions regime that was at least officially — if not always in practice — supported by China and Russia as well as the United States. For a young leader still looking to establish his internal legitimacy and international standing, a meeting with the sitting US president was a major coup.
But things improved dramatically for North Korea after the pandemic. After it began lifting its Covid-era lockdown — one of the toughest in the world — North Korea has become what the Wall Street Journal has called “ the world’s most unlikely growth story .”
The country’s economy has grown for three straight years , and while it’s still an impoverished country where nearly half the population is malnourished, Pyongyang is by all accounts booming, with thousands of new homes built along with a surge in Western-style restaurants and ride-hailing apps.
“North Korea emerged from the pandemic stronger, despite the odds,” said Jung Pak, who served as US special representative for North Korea in the Biden administration. “It’s a very different North Korea now. It’s stronger geopolitically, and Kim is stronger domestically.”
North Korea has been one of the main beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine, sending thousands of soldiers and munitions to help the Russian war effort. While thousands of those troops have died , the North Korean regime has gained billions of dollars in revenue and military aid from Russia in response, as well as invaluable battlefield experience for its commanders and weapons systems.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has come through for the North Koreans in other ways. In 2024, Russia vetoed the mandate of the UN body that monitored the enforcement of international sanctions on North Korea, effectively shredding the international sanctions regime. In 2025, trade between North Korea and China , its main economic partner, rose 25 percent.
The regime has found other innovative ways of raising revenue , reportedly netting billions through cybercrime targeted…
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