Analysis: Years after historic summits, Trump faces emboldened North Korea

Josh Smith

SEOUL (Reuters) – Donald Trump has long touted his relationship with Kim Jong Un, but if the U.S. president-elect tries to hold another summit, he will find the North Korean leader emboldened by an expanded missile arsenal and a much closer relationship with Russia.

After exchanging threats of nuclear annihilation during the first year of Trump’s first term, Kim and the then-US president held three unprecedented meetings in Singapore, Hanoi and the border between North and South Korea in 2018 and 2019.

“We would have a nuclear war in which millions of people would die,” Trump told Fox News last month. “And when I was there, I got along great with Kim Jong Un.”

Many proponents of engagement welcomed the easing of tensions, but the meetings ultimately stalled and failed to produce lasting change in North Korea. Outgoing President Joe Biden has failed to persuade or pressure Pyongyang to return to talks.

Since Trump last met with Kim, the North has significantly expanded its arsenal of massive intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as short-range hypersonic weapons that can deliver nuclear warheads against the U.S. mainland or military bases in the region.

Pyongyang has also reopened its nuclear test site and is ready to resume testing as soon as Kim gives the order, U.S. and South Korean officials said.

And just this year, North Korea signed a mutual defense treaty with Russia and took the unprecedented step of sending thousands of troops to help Moscow in its war in Ukraine, according to officials in Washington, Seoul and Kyiv.

Russia supported North Korea with oil and other imports and vetoed an expansion of a panel of experts that monitored violations of U.N. sanctions.

The Trump camp did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether it would hold more meetings with Kim. But diplomats in Seoul and other North Korea watchers say Trump’s comments suggest he may sooner or later try to restart conversations with Kim.

“Trump believes his cooperation worked well during his first presidency because he feels he has ‘solved’ the North Korean nuclear problem,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo of King’s College London. “Additionally, Trump’s summits with Kim have attracted significant media attention, which he clearly enjoys.”

North Korea, Ukraine, China, Iran and other hotspots are interconnected to a degree unheard of during the first Trump administration, a former first Trump administration official said on condition of anonymity.

“President Trump faces a different geopolitical landscape than in 2021,” the former official said, adding that any significant engagement with North Korea will have to wait a little longer.

North Korea’s ties to Russia, combined with the unpredictability of the new Trump administration, are creating a geopolitical challenge that has officials and diplomats scrambling from Europe to Asia, one diplomatic source in Seoul said.

Dooyoung Kim of the Center for a New American Security said North Korea doesn’t seem to care who sits in the White House because Kim has made it clear that Pyongyang will pursue its nuclear achievements and has the support of both China and Russia.

BENEFITS FOR NORTH KOREA?

A senior South Korean presidential administration official told reporters on Tuesday that it was unclear what course Trump would take because his comments on the campaign trail may differ from what was officially adopted while in office.

In December, Trump denied a media report that he was considering North Korea’s plan to freeze, but maintain, its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and other incentives, but observers say his policy remains unpredictable.

North Korea will likely at least be willing to sit down with the U.S. and see what Trump can offer, since good relations with Washington are the only way to lift some sanctions, Pardo said. Trump might even recognize Pyongyang as a nuclear power, he added.

Kim could see a silver lining in dealing with Trump, said Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now with the Heritage Foundation.

In August, the regime said it would not engage in dialogue with the United States unless Washington canceled military exercises and the rotation of strategic assets, which Trump did in 2018, he said.

“Kim could present Trump with a peace declaration or treaty as a major achievement, potentially worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, even though it would do nothing to actually reduce the threat to the United States and its allies,” Klingner said. “Such an agreement could lay the groundwork for U.S. force reductions in South Korea and Japan.”

(Reporting by Josh Smith; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom and Graham Slattery in Washington and Hyunhee Shin in Seoul; Editing by Lincoln Feast)