US President Donald Trump said he might meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during an upcoming trip to Asia, stoking speculation about renewed US outreach to the reclusive regime.
“I may,” Trump told reporters on Oct 12 when asked if he would meet with Kim during his trip. “That would be exciting.”
Trump is slated to travel in November to the region, where he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China.
Trump has raised the prospect of another meeting with Kim in recent weeks, indicating he would like it to happen in 2026. The two leaders met thrice during the US President’s first term, though those discussions failed to produce any diplomatic breakthroughs.
Still, Trump has repeatedly touted what he describes as warm relations between him and Kim. “I get along with him,” Trump said on Oct 12.
Earlier in October, Trump also met basketball star Dennis Rodman, who has travelled to North Korea multiple times and has had an unusual friendship with Kim.
North Korea has continued with a series of missile launches that have ratcheted up tensions in the region. On Oct 12, it fired multiple ballistic missiles off its east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It marked Pyongyang’s fourth ballistic missile test in about a month.
Trump’s overtures to North Korea come at a delicate moment in US-South Korea relations, with the two countries at odds over trade and security.
The US President has threatened to hit South Korea with new trade penalties if it does not follow through with an investment in a liquefied natural gas project in Alaska, a US$54 billion (S$69.2 billion) plan he has hailed as a centrepiece of Seoul’s US$350 billion investment commitment. The South Korean government has said it agreed to the project only if it proves economically viable.
In August, Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back military exercises with South Korea, citing his frustration that Seoul declined to support US military operations against Iran and saying the drills sent an “inappropriate signal” to North Korea. BLOOMBERG