US President Donald Trump has said he plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year, reviving one of the most unconventional diplomatic relationships of his first presidency and placing North Korea’s nuclear arsenal back at the center of Washington’s Asia policy.
Trump made the announcement on Wednesday, August 19, saying he expected to meet Kim in 2026 and emphasizing what he described as a strong personal relationship with the North Korean leader. The comments came as Washington has moved to scale back a major annual US-South Korean military exercise, a decision that has generated concern among American allies in Asia and renewed speculation about the direction of Trump’s North Korea policy.
“Yeah, I will be,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked whether he planned to meet Kim later this year.
The president offered no detailed timetable or agenda, but the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was considering a meeting with Kim around his planned trip to Shenzhen, China, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, summit in November.
A new Trump-Kim meeting would mark a significant return to the personal diplomacy that defined much of Trump’s first term. The two leaders held three unprecedented meetings between 2018 and 2019, including the first-ever summit between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader.
Those meetings generated international attention and temporarily reduced tensions on the Korean Peninsula, but they failed to produce a lasting agreement to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Trump nevertheless has repeatedly portrayed his relationship with Kim as a diplomatic achievement, recalling an exchange of letters that he said eventually led the two leaders to “fall in love.”
His latest comments suggest that he now sees the relationship as a potential channel for renewed engagement with Pyongyang, even as the United States is simultaneously engaged in a major conflict with Iran.
Trump also made an unusually precise public assessment of North Korea’s nuclear capability. He said Kim had 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons and criticized previous US administrations for allowing Pyongyang to develop such an arsenal.
“He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons. Should have never allowed it to happen … If I were president, I wouldn’t have allowed it,” Trump said.
“But he’s got them. I get along with him very well. I can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he’s going to be fine.”
Trump’s remarks highlighted a difficult contradiction in US policy. Washington continues to oppose the spread of nuclear weapons, while North Korea has already developed an established nuclear arsenal and sophisticated missile capabilities.
The United States does not officially recognise North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state under the international non-proliferation framework. At the same time, successive American administrations have acknowledged that Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons and have sought to deter the country while pursuing, at least officially, the long-term goal of denuclearisation.
Trump’s figure of 57 weapons falls within the range of estimates previously made by US officials and independent research organisations, which have generally assessed that North Korea possesses roughly 50 to 60 nuclear warheads or an arsenal in that broad range.
South Korean officials, however, offered a substantially higher estimate.
South Korean Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back told lawmakers on Thursday that Seoul generally estimates North Korea has between 80 and 120 nuclear weapons.
“We usually estimate it to be around 80 to 120,” Ahn said, declining to provide a more precise number.
Ahn also said South Korea remained opposed to formally recognising North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state. Asked whether Washington had effectively abandoned its goal of denuclearising North Korea, he said he did not believe that was the case.
The difference between the estimates illustrates the uncertainty surrounding North Korea’s nuclear programme. Because the country operates one of the world’s most secretive weapons programmes, outside governments and analysts must rely on intelligence assessments, satellite imagery, statements from Pyongyang and estimates of its production capacity.
North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests and developed a growing range of ballistic missiles, including systems designed to threaten South Korea, Japan and potentially the continental United States.
The country’s nuclear and missile programmes have been the principal source of tension between Pyongyang and Washington for decades.
Trump’s latest diplomatic overture comes after he announced on Sunday that he had ordered the United States to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, describing the drills as “hostile” and arguing that they were damaging to his relationship with Kim.
The decision has caused concern among some US allies because military exercises are considered an important element of maintaining readiness and demonstrating the American security commitment to South Korea.
The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises are designed to prepare US and South Korean forces for a potential North Korean attack. They also serve as a demonstration of the two allies’ ability to conduct combined military operations.
Seoul announced that this year’s exercises would end approximately one week earlier than originally planned, saying the change had been made at the suggestion of the US side.
The Pentagon said the shortened exercise would not undermine its military objectives.
But the decision immediately drew attention because North Korea has long condemned the exercises as rehearsals for an invasion.
Pyongyang has consistently demanded that Washington and Seoul halt or reduce joint military drills, arguing that they are evidence of hostile US policy. Washington and Seoul have maintained that the exercises are defensive in nature and necessary to preserve military readiness.
Trump’s decision to reduce the exercises therefore represents a significant political signal to Pyongyang, particularly because the president explicitly linked the move to his relationship with Kim.
Trump said the drills were “very insulting” to the North Korean leader and claimed Kim had been “very well behaved.”
Yet Pyongyang itself appeared unimpressed by the change.
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister and senior adviser of Kim Jong Un, said Wednesday that she was unaware of any recent communications between her brother and Trump.
“Regarding the recent news from Washington about communication between the leaders of North Korea and the United States, I am completely unaware of it,” she said in a statement.
Her comments appeared to contradict speculation in Washington that direct communication between Trump and Kim may already be under way.
Despite saying she did not know of any current communication, Kim Yo Jong acknowledged that her brother retains positive memories of his encounters with Trump.
She said Kim still had “good memories and feelings” about Trump and described the relationship between the two leaders as “excellent.”
At the same time, she dismissed the decision to shorten the US-South Korean military exercises.
“We do not consider it worth commenting on and find it completely uninteresting,” she said.
The mixed message from Pyongyang leaves open the question of whether Kim would actually agree to another summit with Trump.
North Korea has increasingly presented itself as a permanent nuclear power and has shown little willingness in recent years to return to the denuclearisation negotiations that dominated the Trump-Kim summits.
The collapse of the 2019 Hanoi summit was particularly important. Trump and Kim failed to reach an agreement over how much of North Korea’s nuclear programme should be dismantled and what sanctions relief the United States should provide in return.
The two sides subsequently drifted apart.
North Korea accelerated its missile development while strengthening relations with Russia and expanding military cooperation with Moscow. Pyongyang has also deepened ties with China, its most important economic partner, while maintaining a confrontational posture toward South Korea.
That strategic environment is considerably different from the one Trump encountered during his first term.
North Korea now has more nuclear weapons, a larger missile inventory and greater experience in developing systems capable of delivering nuclear warheads.
The country has also become more closely connected to Russia amid the war in Ukraine, with Pyongyang providing military support to Moscow and receiving economic, technological or military benefits in return, according to Western and South Korean assessments.
A renewed Trump-Kim summit would therefore face a much more complicated strategic landscape than the meetings of 2018 and 2019.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung nevertheless welcomed Trump’s efforts.
Lee, who has advocated stronger South Korean defence capabilities and greater national capacity to reduce Seoul’s dependence on the United States, said late Wednesday that he would “do his utmost” to support and contribute to Trump’s efforts to promote peace with North Korea.
Lee’s government faces the difficult task of balancing its desire for improved relations with Pyongyang against the need to maintain a credible deterrent.
South Korea hosts approximately 28,500 US troops under the long-standing bilateral security alliance. The American military presence is a central element of Seoul’s defence strategy and a key part of Washington’s wider Indo-Pacific security architecture.
The US military presence dates back to the Korean War of 1950-53, which ended in an armistice rather than a formal peace treaty. Technically, the Korean Peninsula therefore remains in a state of war.
For decades, US and South Korean forces have conducted joint exercises to maintain readiness against a possible North Korean attack.
Any sustained reduction in those exercises could therefore become politically sensitive in Seoul and among other US allies in the region, particularly Japan.
For Washington, the challenge is to pursue diplomacy without creating uncertainty over its security commitments.
Trump’s approach appears to place unusually high emphasis on personal relationships with foreign leaders. During his first term, he argued that his direct engagement with Kim could achieve results that conventional diplomacy had failed to deliver.
The summits produced dramatic images and reduced the risk of immediate military confrontation, but they did not resolve the central issue of North Korea’s nuclear programme.
That history has prompted scepticism among some analysts over whether another summit would produce substantive progress.
A meeting could nevertheless provide Trump with an opportunity to reopen communication with Pyongyang and establish a new negotiating framework.
The timing may also be politically significant.
Trump is currently waging war against Iran, which he has justified partly on the grounds that Tehran must not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon. His willingness to negotiate with North Korea despite acknowledging its nuclear arsenal underscores the different circumstances surrounding the two countries.
Trump himself highlighted that contrast when he defended the possibility of another meeting with Kim.
He said North Korea already possessed nuclear weapons, while insisting that Iran could not be allowed to obtain one.
The distinction reflects a longstanding reality in US foreign policy: preventing additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons is treated differently from dealing with states that already possess established nuclear arsenals.
However, Trump’s comments could also fuel questions about whether Washington is gradually moving away from the goal of North Korean denuclearisation toward a policy focused primarily on arms control, deterrence and risk reduction.
Such a shift would represent a major change in US strategy.
Officially, Washington continues to support the eventual denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. South Korean officials also say they have not accepted that the United States has abandoned that objective.
But the practical challenge of persuading Pyongyang to surrender weapons it considers essential to regime survival has become increasingly difficult.
Kim’s government has repeatedly declared that its nuclear arsenal is non-negotiable and has incorporated nuclear weapons into its national defence strategy.
North Korea has also demonstrated little interest in unilateral concessions.
That means any future Trump-Kim meeting is likely to revolve around a broader range of issues, including nuclear risk reduction, missile testing, sanctions, military exercises, US troop deployments and inter-Korean tensions.
The possibility of a meeting in connection with the November APEC summit in China would add another layer of diplomatic significance.
A Trump-Kim encounter during a major Asia-Pacific gathering could place the Korean Peninsula at the center of international attention and provide Trump with an opportunity to portray renewed engagement as a diplomatic breakthrough.
But much will depend on whether Pyongyang is prepared to engage substantively.
For now, Kim Yo Jong’s statement suggests that North Korea is not rushing to respond to Washington’s latest overtures. Her dismissal of the shortened military drills indicates that Pyongyang may see the change as insufficient to justify a major diplomatic response.
Trump, meanwhile, appears determined to keep the door open.
His repeated emphasis on his personal relationship with Kim suggests that he believes the channel created during his first presidency can still be revived.
The question is whether personal diplomacy can overcome the strategic changes of the past several years.
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has grown, its missile technology has advanced and its relationships with Russia and China have evolved. South Korea has simultaneously sought greater military self-reliance while remaining dependent on the US alliance for extended nuclear deterrence and broader strategic protection.
Against that backdrop, a Trump-Kim summit would be more than a repeat of the high-profile meetings of his first term.
It would test whether personal diplomacy can produce concrete security arrangements after years of nuclear expansion and rising regional tensions.
For the United States and its Asian allies, the central challenge will be maintaining deterrence while pursuing dialogue.
For North Korea, the question will be whether engagement with Trump can deliver economic, political or security benefits without requiring Pyongyang to surrender the nuclear capability it regards as the foundation of its national security.
And for Trump, a renewed meeting with Kim could offer a chance to revive one of the signature diplomatic initiatives of his first presidency at a time when his wider foreign policy faces significant challenges.
