US President Donald Trump has again praised the leader of nuclear-armed North Korea while rebuking key ally Seoul for failing to help Washington fight Iran, reigniting one of the most contentious diplomatic issues from his first term. Trump said on Monday that North Korea leader Kim Jong Un had responded to his recent overtures with a “very positive” exchange, a day after he ordered the Pentagon to scale back military drills with South Korea designed to prepare for a possible war with Pyongyang. The US president said his ties with Kim, whom he met three times during his first term, made the Korean Peninsula “much safer”.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Trump was pushing aides to arrange a meeting with Kim as soon as this autumn, ahead of the midterm elections on November 3. Analysts say a summit with Kim, irrespective of its outcome, would be a useful feather on Trump’s cap, particularly as Washington’s unpopular war on Iran stands unresolved and his electoral pledge to end the Ukraine war remains unfulfilled. Yet, Trump’s effort to cozy up to Kim may also have to do with exercising leverage vis-a-vis South Korea, in a typical example of the US president’s transactional approach to diplomacy.
The US president held a first, historic face-to-face meeting with Kim in Singapore in 2018, where they agreed to the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean Peninsula. But subsequent meetings in 2019, in Hanoi and in the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), failed to build on the initial agreement — even though Trump became the first and only US president to briefly cross over into North Korea. Since then, North Korea has expanded its missile and nuclear capabilities, continued missile testing and developed close military ties with Russia.
Nevertheless, Trump says his relationship with Kim remains “unthreatening and respectful”. Yong-Chool Ha, who also lectures at the University of Washington, said Trump may believe that the Hanoi summit failed because of pressure from critics, including his own former national security adviser John Bolton, who had urged the US government to pursue denuclearisation or think about the possibility of pushing for regime change in Pyongyang. Trump took aim at South Korea on his Truth Social network on Sunday night, abruptly announcing that he had ordered the Pentagon to scale back “inappropriate and hostile” military drills with Seoul.
He later linked the decision to South Korea’s refusal to help with the US-Israel war on Iran. The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises are designed to prepare for a possible war with North Korea. The United States stations about 28,500 troops in South Korea to bolster the country’s defences, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Scaling back these drills creates tensions for Seoul, which depends on Washington to deter North Korea. Pyongyang decries the drills as dress rehearsals for an invasion. Eugene Park, a historian of East Asia at the University of Nevada in the US, said Trump’s decision reflected Washington’s shifting strategic priorities.
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