Analysis-Years after historic summits, Trump faces an emboldened North Korea

By Josh Smith

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

After trading threats of nuclear annihilation during the first year of Trump's initial term, Kim and the then-U.S. president held three unprecedented meetings in Singapore, Hanoi, and at the border between North and South Korea in 2018 and 2019.

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

Many proponents of engagement welcomed the reduction in tensions but those meetings eventually stalled and failed to achieve lasting changes in North Korea. Outgoing President Joe Biden has been unable to entice or pressure Pyongyang back to talks.

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

Pyongyang has also reopened its nuclear testing site and stands ready to resume tests whenever Kim gives the order, American and South Korean officials said.

And just this year, North Korea signed a mutual defence treaty with Russia and took the unprecedented step of dispatching thousands of troops to assist in Moscow's war in Ukraine, according to officials in Washington, Seoul, and Kyiv.

Russia has backed North Korea by providing oil and other imports, and vetoed the extension of a panel of experts that had been monitoring United Nations sanctions violations.

Trump's camp did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether he will pursue new meetings with Kim. But diplomats in Seoul and other North Korea watchers say Trump's comments suggest he may look to rekindle a conversation with Kim sooner or later.

"Trump feels that his engagement worked well during his first presidency in that he feels that he 'solved' the North Korean nuclear issue," said Ramon Pacheco Pardo of King's College in London. "Plus, Trump's summits with Kim attracted significant media attention, which he clearly relishes."

North Korea, Ukraine, China, Iran and other hot spots are interconnected to an extent unheard of during the first Trump administration, a former official in the first Trump administration said on the condition of anonymity.

"President Trump faces a different geopolitical landscape than in 2021," the former official said, adding that any substantial engagement with North Korea will need to wait a bit.

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

Duyeon Kim, from the Center for a New American Security, said North Korea does not seem to care who sits in the White House because Kim has made it clear that Pyongyang will march towards its nuclear milestones, and has both China and Russia's backing.

UPSIDES FOR NORTH KOREA?

A senior official at in South Korea's presidential office told reporters on Tuesday that it is unclear what course Trump will chart because his comments during the campaign may differ from what is officially adopted when in office.

In December, Trump denied a media report that he was considering a plan for North Korea to freeze - but retain - its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief and other incentives, but observers say his policies remain unpredictable.

North Korea will likely at least want to sit down with the U.S. to see what Trump may want to offer, as good relations with Washington are the only way for some sanctions to be removed, Pardo said. Trump may even recognise Pyongyang as a nuclear power, he added.

Kim could see an upside in reaching out to Trump, said Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now with the Heritage Foundation.

In August, the regime declared it wouldn’t engage in dialogue with the U.S. unless Washington cancelled military exercises and rotational deployments of strategic assets, both of which Trump did in 2018, he said.

"Kim could pitch a peace declaration or treaty to Trump as a major accomplishment potentially worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, 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 foundation for reducing U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan."