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The U.S. president’s overtures to North Korea’s leader risk sidelining Seoul and strengthening Pyongyang’s nuclear leverage.

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Panmunjom, South Korea, on June 30, 2019.
REUTERS/YONHAP

Jeong Yong-soo

The author is an editorial writer and the director of the Unification and Culture Research Institute of the JoongAng Ilbo.

U.S. President Donald Trump is making unusual moves. After posting a photograph of himself with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom on June 30, 2019, on Aug. 15, he has continued pressuring South Korea while sending overtures to Pyongyang.

On Aug. 16, Trump ordered the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS), the allies’ joint military exercise, scaled back. “Considering that I have a very good relationship with Chairman Kim Jong-un, I don’t like the fact that, for a long time, the United States has agreed to participate in joint military exercises with South Korea,” he said, making clear North Korea was a consideration.

Combined Forces Command chief Gen. Xavier Brunson met Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back to discuss reductions, and this year’s exercise was ultimately cut from two weeks to one.

Trump proposed a summit with Kim on Aug. 17. Asked whether North Korea had responded, he said, “He has,” describing the response as very positive. Two days later, Trump said he would meet Kim this year and claimed Kim had “57 powerful nuclear weapons.” Trump thus appeared to edge toward Pyongyang’s demand for recognition as a nuclear-armed state.

Trump flaunted his bromance with Kim during his first term, exchanging at least 27 letters. But analysts largely believe his latest moves reflect urgency to change the political atmosphere before November’s midterm elections while Washington remains bogged down in Iran.

Washington signed a memorandum of understanding with Tehran on June 18 to conduct 60 days of negotiations. Aug. 16, when Trump made his conciliatory gesture toward North Korea, was the final day of those talks.

Trump says Kim responded, but Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s powerful sister and a senior Workers’ Party official who often serves as his de facto spokesperson, dismissed the UFS reduction on Wednesday, saying North Korea had “no interest whatsoever” in it. Regarding communication between the leaders, she said it was something “I know absolutely nothing about.”

Trump also sought a summit during his visit to South Korea last October, but Pyongyang did not respond. Since the collapse of the 2019 Hanoi summit, North Korea has argued Washington “blew a golden opportunity” and shifted its national strategy. It has made improved U.S. relations a long-term project while drawing closer to China and Russia.

Still, better ties with Washington and sanctions relief are essential to normalizing North Korea’s economy. That helps explain why Kim, humiliated in Hanoi, nevertheless met Trump at Panmunjom four months later.

Pyongyang’s restrained language may also be deliberate. Instead of the crude, inflammatory rhetoric of 2017, it has put Kim Yo-jong forward to say simply that she knows nothing. North Korea has also refrained from publicizing recent missile launches domestically. It may be leaving room for Kim to meet Trump whenever he chooses.

Trump’s Aug. 15 overture came 2,602 days after their Panmunjom meeting. If successful, it would lead to their fourth encounter.

At their first summit in Singapore in June 2018, the leaders agreed on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, U.S. security guarantees for North Korea and new bilateral relations. For Kim, exchanging a denuclearization pledge for security guarantees and normalization was satisfactory.

Hanoi was different. Kim returned empty-handed after a grand departure ceremony, damaging the myth of the leader’s infallibility. Panmunjom made Trump the first sitting U.S. president to step onto North Korean soil but brought Kim little substantive gain. In crude terms, Kim’s record from three meetings was one win and two losses. His calculations for a fourth will be more complicated.

North Korea’s circumstances also differ sharply from 2018, while trust in Trump’s shifting positions has diminished. Between 2016 and 2017, Pyongyang faced seven UN sanctions packages, with China and Russia participating. Bank of Korea figures released last month show North Korea’s economy contracted 3.5 percent in 2017 and 4.1 percent in 2018.

By contrast, growth over the past three years reached 3.1 percent, 3.7 percent and 3.5 percent. Closer ties with China and Russia have weakened sanctions enforcement, while troop deployments to Russia and increased trade with China have brought benefits.

Kim now has more than 15 years’ experience as supreme leader, and North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities have advanced substantially. He is no longer as desperate as he was in 2018. In January, President Xi Jinping told President Lee Jae Myung, who sought help improving inter-Korean relations, that Pyongyang no longer listened to Beijing.

Kim is likely aware that Trump, constrained by the Iran war and facing elections, needs a diplomatic breakthrough. He may therefore keep Trump waiting while raising his price.

The greater Trump’s urgency, the greater the risk that Washington could formally recognize North Korea as a nuclear state or approach Pyongyang while bypassing Seoul. If North Korea gains nuclear-state recognition and U.S.-North Korea relations become a zero-sum game with the South Korea-U.S. alliance, that would be the worst outcome for South Korea.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.