5 Key Points – A grand peace deal between President Trump and North Korea remains nearly impossible.
-The core problem is Pyongyang’s central demand: formal recognition as a legitimate nuclear weapons state.
-For the U.S., accepting this would be a catastrophic blow to global non-proliferation, effectively giving a green light to other rogue states like Iran.
-While other issues like North Korea’s support for Russia or its human rights record could be negotiated, the fundamental obstacle remains.
-The U.S. has little to offer that would satisfy Pyongyang short of an unthinkable concession, like withdrawing all U.S. troops from South Korea.
Why Would Trump Negotiate with North Korea Now?
United States President Donald Trump has long sought to negotiate with North Korea. In his first term, he met North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un three times. Nothing came of those meetings, but Trump genuinely seems to want a reputation as a peacemaker. He clearly wants a Nobel Peace Prize—if only for the acclaim, and because former President Barack Obama won the coveted award.
But the larger point still stands. Trump seems to want to resolve the US-North Korean stand-off genuinely. But the issues between the two sides are deep and genuine. And this week, Kim’s sister reminded us all of the core divide: Pyongyang wants Trump to recognize North Korea as a legitimate nuclear weapons state.
This is very tricky. Were Trump to do so, he would signal to other potential nuclearizers—most obviously Iran—that if they too nuke up, then the US will eventually accept them too. Trump is unlikely to agree to that, making another round of Trump-Kim summitry unlikely.
North Korea’s Illegal Nuclear Weapons Program
The closest thing in world politics to ‘law’ regarding nuclear weapons is the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The treaty designates five countries—America, Russia, China, France, and Britain—as legitimate or recognized nuclear weapons states. Other signatories agree not to develop nukes in exchange for civilian nuclear assistance.
North Korea was briefly in the NPT and then withdrew after the hermit kingdom was caught cheating. The United Nations Security Council then declared the North’s nuclear and missile programs illegal and started sanctioning Pyongyang over them. Nevertheless, the North persisted, overcoming massive international resistance. Since 2006, it has had nuclear weapons; since 2017, it has had missiles that can reach the continental United States.
While Kim’s sister is correct that North Korea will likely never revert to non-nuclear status, formal recognition of that status would be a substantial blow to the nonproliferation regime. It would signal to other countries considering nuclear weapons that the US might come to accept their nuclearization in time, too. North Korea could be a model for nuclear-curious rogue states to get both the weapons and acceptance.
Hence, Trump insisted on denuclearization back in 2018-19 when he met Kim. And his second administration has stuck to that demand as well.
Can Trump Get Anything from North Korea Now?
Given the high costs of engaging North Korea, it seems unlikely Trump will try. Trump faces multiple other crises in Europe and the Middle East that engage him. And he likely does not want a repeat of 2018-19, when all the hype and media attention still resulted in nothing. But perhaps Trump could negotiate around the nuclear question, ignoring it for the moment. There are other outstanding issues he could address:
North Korea’s participation in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
One reason North Korea is likely playing hard-to-get with Trump now is that it enjoys better patronage than it has in decades. China has long deflected the toughest US pressure on North Korea, but it has also worked with the US occasionally on North Korea. Beijing clearly fears being pulled into a US-North Korea conflict and tries to control the North’s worst instincts. By contrast, Russia today has much less to lose by wholeheartedly supporting North Korea. Trump could negotiate for a greater distance between Pyongyang and Moscow.
North Korean conventional power
The North’s nuclear weapons garner the most attention, but its conventional power clustered near South Korea’s capital is a considerable threat, too. Trump could negotiate for a pullback of North Korean artillery from the demilitarized zone. This, in fact, was one of the issues discussed in the diplomacy of Trump’s first term. Nothing came of it.
North Korean human rights
North Korea’s human rights record is appalling. This is a well-known, enduring problem. Trump often claims to be a friend of Kim. If Trump could convince his friend to lighten up the regime’s repression – a strategically low-cost move for the North – it would go a long way to improving North Korea’s global reputation – and the willingness of other countries to engage it.
What Would Trump Give Up?
All of these possible concessions from the North – nuclear or conventional retrenchment, human rights improvement, and so on – would be huge successes for Trump and might earn him his much-coveted Nobel. But the same problem that undercut 2018-19’s denuclearization diplomacy exists today—what would the US give up in return? Sanctions rollback is not enough. The North has rejected that before as too little. Trump must come up with something much more dramatic (and contentious)—like withdrawing the US military from South Korea.
Generating a counter-concession package would require a major campaign to sell those losses to domestic and foreign audiences, and Trump has not yet begun to develop one.
About the Author: Dr. Robert Kelly
Dr. Robert E. Kelly is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University in South Korea. His research interests focus on security in Northeast Asia, U.S. foreign policy, and international financial institutions. He has written for outlets including Foreign Affairs, the European Journal of International Relations, and the Economist, and he has spoken on television news services including BBC and CCTV. His personal website/blog is here; his Twitter page is here.
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