The “complete denuclearization of North Korea” remains a priority for President Donald Trump, a White House official says, as Kim Jong Un renews his pledge to expand the country’s atomic arsenal.
Newsweek reached out to the North Korean embassy in the U.S. and the U.S. Department of Defense with emailed requests for comment.
Why It Matters
North Korea’s United Nations-sanctioned nuclear weapons program remains a major source of tension with South Korea. During Trump’s first term, he met with Kim Jong Un three times in a bid to work toward North Korea‘s denuclearization, but the talks failed to produce any significant breakthroughs.
The country has since expanded both its ballistic and nuclear capabilities, which it maintains are necessary to deter U.S. and allied aggression. U.S. and South Korean leaders have warned any nuclear attack by Pyongyang would mean the end of the Kim regime.
What To Know
The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday released photos of Kim leading an undated inspection of North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Institute and a “nuclear-material production base.”
During his visit, Kim said 2025 will be a watershed year for strengthening his nuclear forces in line with the five-year military development plan adopted in 2021.
The 40-year-old leader said all other priorities must be made subordinate to raising national prestige and interest, calling for “epochal successes” in producing weapons-grade nuclear material and “strengthening the nuclear shield of the country,” KCNA cited him as saying.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seen during his recent inspection of a ‘nuclear-material production base’ and North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Institute.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seen during his recent inspection of a ‘nuclear-material production base’ and North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Institute.
Korean Central News Agency
The photos show Kim and accompanying officials walking between rows of centrifuges in a hall resembling a site he visited in September, which analysts suspected was an unconfirmed second nuclear enrichment facility near Pyongyang. North Korea has so far only publicly acknowledged the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center uranium enrichment plant about 60 miles north of the capital.
Kim’s nuclear ambitions are expected to remain a foreign policy challenge for the second Trump White House.
“President Trump will pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea, just as he did in his first term,” National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes told South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency Tuesday. “President Trump had a good relationship with Kim Jong Un, and his mix of toughness and diplomacy led to the first-ever leader-level commitment to complete denuclearization.”
The Federation of American Scientists has estimated that North Korea has developed around 50 nuclear warheads since carrying out its first nuclear test in 2006.
What People Are Saying
Yang Moo-jin, president of Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, told Agence France-Presse: “Trump is extending overtures for dialogue with Kim to encourage discussions from a political perspective. On the other hand, Washington’s working-level officials are now making clear that they focused on negotiating with the ultimate goal of achieving complete denuclearisation.”
What’s Next?
Trump has said he would reach out to Kim again.
“I got along with him. He’s not a religious zealot. He happens to be a smart guy,” the president said In a Fox News interview last week.