Trump says he will reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un

President Donald J. Trump said he would reach out to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, raising the possibility of rekindling their bromance diplomacy five years after their first round of negotiations attracted global attention, but did little to reduce Kim’s growing nuclear threat. .

“He liked me and I got along with him,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, after saying he would reach out to Kim again in his second term. “He is not a religious fanatic. Turns out he’s a smart guy.”

Trump’s comments, broadcast Thursday night, were the first time he expressed his intention to reopen diplomacy with Kim since he took office on Monday. During their first term, Trump and Kim made history when they held the first summit between their nations, which are still technically at war. But their relationship petered out after their three high-profile meetings failed to make any progress.

It is unclear if or how Kim, emboldened by a stronger alliance with Russia and his own country’s military advances, will respond to the overtures this time. Since Trump last met with Kim five years ago, North Korea’s missile capabilities have expanded and it could exact a higher price for making concessions on its nuclear program, analysts say.

Trump had expressed interest in the North Korean leader during his campaign, saying at one point that “it’s good to get along when someone has a lot of nuclear weapons.” Hours after his inauguration, he also told reporters that Kim was “a nuclear power,” a change from Washington’s long refusal to recognize North Korea as such.

Officials in South Korea, a U.S. ally gripped by a domestic political crisis following the impeachment of its leader, have feared that Trump’s return could put the Korean Peninsula back on a diplomatic rollercoaster.

During his first term, Trump and Kim for the first time exchanged personal insults and threats of nuclear war. They then shook hands and held three meetings between 2018 and 2019. At one point, Trump declared on social media that “there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea” and that he “fell in love” with Kim.

However, those talks ended without an agreement on how to roll back North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs or when the United States should ease sanctions imposed on the country. Kim has vowed not to engage in dialogue with Washington again and has redoubled his commitment to building and testing nuclear-capable missiles.

Now, South Korean analysts and officials fear that Trump could strike a deal with Kim in which North Korea would give up its long-range missiles, but not all of its nuclear weapons, in exchange for sanctions relief.

Trump’s recent statement describing North Korea as a nuclear power clashed with a long-standing agreement between Washington and Seoul that North Korea should never be accepted as such.

“We cannot grant North Korea nuclear power status,” South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement after Trump’s comment.

Despite Trump’s flattering comments about Kim, it was unclear whether the dictator would welcome the idea of ​​a renewed courtship. After the failure of the first round of meetings, Kim has championed a new “multipolar” global order, signing a mutual defense pact with Moscow last year and sending weapons and some 12,000 troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Despite suffering heavy casualties in the war against Ukraine, North Korea was preparing to send more troops to Russia, the South Korean military said on Friday.

China has long been the only major buffer between North Korea and U.S.-led international efforts to rein in its regime’s military ambitions. In exchange for helping Russia in its war against Ukraine, Kim has enlisted Moscow as another important ally to protect his country from American pressure.

North Korea had not commented on Trump’s election or inauguration until Wednesday, when its state media published a two-sentence report.

However, the regime launched missiles off its east coast in the days before the takeover. And it is preparing to launch more missiles, according to South Korea’s military, including long-range ballistic missiles powerful enough to reach the continental United States, which tends to annoy American defense officials the most.

North Korea’s state media reported Friday that the nation’s parliament had this week adopted budgets for the year that would “ensure the acceleration of significant change in national defense capabilities.”

Kim will likely wait until a Workers’ Party meeting in June or another parliamentary meeting in September to react to Trump’s proposal, said Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

“It will react after assessing the Trump administration’s seriousness, intent and calculations behind its approach toward North Korea,” Hong said.