![\"North](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260819.8164c0b7a1194e8f92d7607ac88ff4b1_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Trump")
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with U.S. President Donald Trump for talks and a dinner at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019, the Korean Central News Agency reported. Yonhap News<\/p>\nNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with U.S. President Donald Trump for talks and a dinner at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2019, the Korean Central News Agency reported. Yonhap News<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump is moving quickly to revive summit diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but Pyongyang has yet to show much response. North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities have grown significantly since the 2019 Hanoi summit, and its new backing from Russia has made the calculus of any U.S.-North Korea negotiation far more complex. Even if talks reopen, the tasks ahead are formidable. Beyond finding common ground between denuclearization and sanctions relief, South Korea faces the challenge of not being sidelined during direct U.S.-North Korea negotiations.<\/p>\n
According to diplomatic sources on the 19th, the U.S. State Department is reviewing options to resume a U.S.-North Korea summit at Trump’s direction. Discussions are said to include a plan for Trump to travel to Pyongyang himself to meet Kim. Having met Kim in Singapore in 2018 and in Hanoi and Panmunjom in 2019, Trump has now left open the possibility of holding a summit in Pyongyang, the heart of North Korea. Analysts say that with the burden of a prolonged war with Iran growing ahead of the November midterm elections, Trump also aims to present improved U.S.-North Korea relations as a diplomatic achievement.<\/p>\n
Unlike Trump’s active moves, North Korea is for now taking a wait-and-see stance. Although Trump has repeatedly emphasized his “good relationship” with Kim recently, North Korea has held back from stating a position for a fourth day. Instead, on the 19th, North Korea used a Korean Central News Agency commentary to criticize the Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS), a joint South Korea-U.S. exercise. Some read the choice of a media commentary format \u2014 rather than a statement issued directly by a senior figure such as Workers’ Party Central Committee Deputy Director Kim Yo-jong \u2014 as a sign that North Korea is managing the level of its anti-U.S. criticism. Even so, although Trump has ordered the joint exercise scaled back, North Korea has not immediately sent a signal for dialogue.<\/p>\n
If North Korea enters negotiations, the key question is what it will demand in return for talks. The domestic and external environment North Korea faces now is greatly changed from the time of the Hanoi summit. By expanding military and economic cooperation with Russia, it has gained more capacity to withstand international sanctions, and it has continued to advance its nuclear warhead and missile capabilities.<\/p>\n
Diplomatic observers believe North Korea is likely to demand relief from sanctions and de facto recognition as a nuclear-armed state in exchange for talks. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju last October, Trump indicated that he could discuss sanctions with North Korea. If a U.S.-North Korea summit materializes, the scope of sanctions relief and the status to be assigned to North Korea’s nuclear forces could emerge as central agenda items.<\/p>\n
For the United States, too, accepting North Korea’s demands outright would be difficult. Recognizing North Korea as a de facto nuclear-armed state could undermine the very principle of Korean Peninsula denuclearization that Washington has maintained. Moreover, North Korea’s nuclear capabilities have grown to a scale hard to compare with the time of the 2019 Hanoi summit. Jeffrey Lewis of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation assessed that North Korea’s nuclear weapons could now exceed 100. As its nuclear capabilities have grown, the targets and methods for future dismantlement, freezing and verification have become more complex than before.<\/p>\n
Some therefore project that rather than entering denuclearization talks from the outset, the two sides could take an approach that prioritizes restoring leader-to-leader relations. This would mean shelving a conclusion on the nuclear issue and seeking a breakthrough in areas where agreement is relatively more feasible, such as normalizing relations and guaranteeing regime security. If North Korea finds it hard to win recognition as a nuclear-armed state in a single step, it too could use the very act of negotiating directly with the United States through a summit as an achievement. Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, assessed that “confirming a friendly relationship through a U.S.-North Korea summit is itself a victory for Kim.”<\/p>\n
There is also talk that China could play a mediating role in the search for common ground between the U.S. and North Korea. With Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States scheduled for September, Trump could ask Xi to help bring North Korea back to dialogue. As China has stated it will play a constructive role on the Korean Peninsula, it could step forward as a facilitator for reopening U.S.-North Korea talks.<\/p>\n
The South Korean government also expressed hope for a resumption of U.S.-North Korea summit diplomacy. Speaking at the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee that day, Foreign Minister Cho Hyun called the recent movements “a turning point into a new phase” and said that “if Kim wishes, a U.S.-North Korea summit could be possible on the occasion of APEC.” Unification Minister Chung Dong-young likewise expressed hope that meaningful dialogue between the U.S. and North Korea could lead to improved inter-Korean relations.<\/p>\n
The concern is that if the U.S. and North Korea proceed rapidly with a “top-down” leader-to-leader approach, South Korea’s standing could narrow. With Trump taking a transactional approach even on alliance issues, the possibility that direct U.S.-North Korea negotiations could proceed without sufficient coordination with South Korea cannot be ruled out. Because South Korea’s participation is essential on the Korean Peninsula peace regime and sanctions issues, some point out that Seoul must secure its role before U.S.-North Korea talks get under way in earnest. Yang Moo-jin, a chair professor at the University of North Korean Studies, noted that “implementing a peace regime and sanctions relief is impossible without South Korea’s participation,” while also pointing out that “since Korea passing is expected in U.S.-North Korea talks, President Lee Jae-myung must work to have the United States reflect the end-of-war process he has proposed.”<\/p>\n
Ultimately, analysts say whether a U.S.-North Korea summit takes place depends less on Trump’s will than on whether conditions are created that allow Kim to move. Having strengthened its bargaining position beyond 2019 through closeness with Russia and advances in nuclear forces, North Korea’s demands and the concessions the United States can accept present a first hurdle in how far the gap between them can be narrowed. On top of that, if the U.S. and North Korea enter direct talks, how much of a role and influence South Korea can secure at the negotiating table is also likely to be an important variable for the future of the Korean Peninsula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with U.S. President Donald Trump for talks and a dinner at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8399,141,5280,129,26492,1722,64446],"class_list":["post-125572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pyongyang","tag-denuclearization","tag-kim-jong-un","tag-korean-peninsula","tag-pyongyang","tag-sanctions-relief","tag-trump","tag-u-s-north-korea-summit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}