![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Trump-Kim-1024x768.jpg.optimal.jpg\" "\\"Trump")
US President Donald Trump meets Kim Jong-un at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019. Credit: Public Domain.<\/p>\nUS President Donald Trump meets Kim Jong-un at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019. Credit: Public Domain.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, President Donald Trump said the United States would scale back major military exercises with South Korea, citing his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The announcement rattled Seoul.<\/p>\n
Three days later, Trump went further, saying he hoped to meet Kim before the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly floated the prospect of renewing his relationship with Kim since returning to office. Last year, he said he would \u201cprobably do something with him at some point.\u201d Now, Trump appears to believe that time has come.<\/p>\n
If Trump wants to meet Kim again, he may still have a chance. But swiping at the alliance with South Korea is the wrong opening move, and he\u2019ll need to rethink his approach to North Korea\u2019s nuclear arsenal.<\/p>\n
Change of tone. Trump needs to make sure that Kim understands that the terms of a new round of the US-North Korean dialogue would be unprecedented. These would not resemble the talks of his first term, which centered on Kim\u2019s growing nuclear arsenal and ended in failure after their ill-fated 2019 meeting<\/a> in Hanoi. Renewed talks would now need to focus on the notion of a transformed US-North Korean relationship.<\/p>\n Kim Jong-un\u2019s sister, Kim Yo-jong, responded to this week\u2019s events. While she gave the United States no credit for the intended \u201cgoodwill\u201d gesture of scaling back military exercises, she did not go as far as to humiliate Trump directly by rebuking her brother\u2019s interest in meeting him.<\/p>\n Kim\u2019s sister noted<\/a> that if there was any communication between Trump and Kim, she was \u201ccompletely unaware of such matters,\u201d and that her brother \u201cholds fond personal memories and positive sentiments regarding Trump.\u201d Last September, Kim Jong-un told the Supreme People\u2019s Assembly, North Korea\u2019s state legislature, that he had<\/a> a \u201cgood memory\u201d of President Trump<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, Kim\u2019s sister also noted that the \u201cUS hostile policy\u201d\u2014a longstanding North Korean phrase intending to capture a range of US positions and military practices\u2014hasn\u2019t changed. At the core of this hostile policy is the US demand for denuclearization.<\/p>\n Wrong signal. The North Korean view about nuclear weapons is clear. Kim already told Trump<\/a>\u2014and the world\u2014publicly last year what it would take for the two leaders to meet again: \u201cIf the United States, freeing itself from its absurd pursuit of other\u2019s denuclearization and recognizing the reality, wants genuine peaceful coexistence with us, there is no reason for us not to come face to face with it,\u201d Kim told the Supreme People\u2019s Assembly.<\/p>\n Kim\u2019s looking for a signal that what Washington wants has changed. Trump\u2019s instincts, as he seeks engagement with North Korea, have led him to issue a costly signal. It\u2019s just the wrong one.<\/p>\n Scaling back military exercises with Seoul doesn\u2019t interest North Korea, but a credible, high-level statement of U.S. policy that denuclearization is not the short-term goal would get North Korea\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n Trump could have done this<\/a> at any point so far in his term. For instance, he could have used his State of the Union address this year to roll out a distinctly new concept for what US-North Korean relations might look like. It is still not too late.<\/p>\n If the president seeks to make the most of his long journey to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in China this November to meet Kim, he should give an address\u2014a prepared, written address and not off-the-cuff comments\u2014that lays out a new vision for what the US-North Korean relationship could be. The United States should develop this vision in concert with its Northeast Asian allies.<\/p>\n The purpose of this would not be to legitimate or bless Kim\u2019s nuclear status, but to come to terms with the pressing urgency that the United States maintains no formal relations, regular communications, or cooperative security measures with a country that maintains<\/a> arguably the world\u2019s lowest threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n The overarching goal of such engagement should be to work toward stability<\/a> and to recognize that the United States will have to coexist with a nuclear-armed North Korea for some time. In private, Washington and its allies can still maintain their long-term objective of denuclearizing North Korea. But they will need to recognize that this would require a fundamental transformation of the Northeast Asian security environment, which may include a different relationship between the two Koreas in a post-Korean unification context and significantly lower threat perceptions in Pyongyang.<\/p>\n Coherent US policy needed. The unnecessary crisis with South Korea caused by the president\u2019s instincts to both seek engagement with Kim without understanding North Korea\u2019s position\u2014and to punish Seoul for its perceived distance on US policy toward Iran\u2014has created a roadblock to a coordinated approach between the two allies.<\/p>\n If there is to be any productive engagement with Kim, it will require Washington and Seoul to immediately address the political fallout of the president\u2019s impulsive decision to scale back exercises. Given South Korean President Lee Jae-myung\u2019s own interest in engaging Pyongyang, Trump\u2019s bid to meet Kim may have received greater support had not the crisis affected the alliance.<\/p>\n The greatest error\u2014and the one certain to doom Trump to radio silence from Pyongyang\u2014would be to push for a meeting that seeks to persuade Kim<\/a> of giving up his nuclear weapons. While Kim previously maintained the possibility of conditional denuclearization, having signed on to the goal in the June 2018 Singapore statement<\/a>, he has categorically ruled it out since 2022.<\/p>\n Amid multiple US military campaigns to remove leaders in Iran and Venezuela in the past year, Kim\u2019s interest in the survival of his regime is more, not less, tied to his growing nuclear capabilities. Kim\u2019s sister pointed out<\/a> as much: \u201cHistory and reality demonstrate that the regional security landscape becomes more balanced and stable when the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea possesses stronger deterrence capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n The key to unlocking engagement with Pyongyang is to credibly communicate that Washington is ready to seriously contend with the requirements of coexisting with a nuclear-armed North Korea. This has already been said out loud in various formats: The Biden administration acknowledged North Korea as a third nuclear-armed adversary<\/a> alongside Russia and China, and Trump himself has called Kim a \u201cnuclear power<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n President Trump\u2019s closest security advisors should start seriously drafting up a new policy\u2014ideally in the form of a speech\u2014and ensure that Trump can deliver it well in advance of the next APEC summit if he\u2019s interested in drawing Kim back to the table. As far as the contents go, the less said about denuclearization, the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump meets Kim Jong-un at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019. 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