WASHINGTON (BN24) — President Donald Trump said Monday he is open to holding another meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, suggesting the two could sit down as early as this year despite years of stalled diplomacy and Pyongyang’s expanding nuclear program.
Trump made the remarks at the White House while hosting newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae Myung. The U.S. president recalled his unprecedented meetings with Kim during his first term, saying the two leaders “got along great” and exchanged what he described as “beautiful” letters.
“I’d like to meet him this year,” Trump told reporters. “We became very friendly, and I think we can do something in that regard. I’d like to help the relationship between the two Koreas.”
Between 2018 and 2019, Trump and Kim held three high-profile summits, including Trump’s symbolic step across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) into North Korea — the first by a sitting American president. On Monday, Trump reminisced about that moment, recalling how “everyone went crazy, especially the Secret Service,” when he crossed the line. “But I loved it,” he added, saying he felt secure because of his rapport with Kim.
Despite the historic encounters, the talks yielded little progress in curbing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. In March, Trump acknowledged that Pyongyang had firmly established itself as a “nuclear power.”
Since those summits, North Korea has accelerated its weapons development, expanded its ballistic missile program, and strengthened its alliance with Russia by supplying troops and arms for Moscow’s war in Ukraine. In June, Kim pledged to Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country would “always stand with Moscow.”
Even so, the White House said earlier this summer that Trump would welcome communication with Kim. South Korea’s new leader Lee Jae Myung has also promised to reopen dialogue with the North, suspending the use of loudspeakers that previously blasted propaganda across the DMZ.
Analysts caution, however, that restarting diplomacy will be far more difficult than in Trump’s first term, given North Korea’s deepened military capabilities and closer ties with Moscow.
