WASHINGTON. – President-elect Donald Trump’s team is discussing pursuing direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, hoping a fresh diplomatic push can lower the risks of armed conflict, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Several in Trump’s team now see a direct approach from Trump, to build on a relationship that already exists, as most likely to break the ice with Kim, years after the two traded insults and what Trump called “beautiful” letters in an unprecedented diplomatic effort during his first term in office, the people said.
The policy discussions are fluid and no final decisions have been made by the president-elect, the sources said.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
What reciprocation Kim will offer Trump is unclear. The North Koreans ignored four years of outreach by US President Joe Biden to start talks with no pre-conditions, and Kim is emboldened by an expanded missile arsenal and a much closer relationship with Russia.
“We have already gone as far as we can on negotiating with the United States,” Kim said last week in a speech at a Pyongyang military exhibition, according to state media.
During his 2017-2021 presidency, Trump held three meetings with Kim, in Singapore, Hanoi, and at the Korean border, the first time a sitting US president had set foot in the country.
Their diplomacy yielded no concrete results, even as Trump described their talks as falling “in love.” The US called for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, while Kim demanded full sanctions relief, and then issued new threats.
It was not clear what result a new diplomatic effort would yield. An initial Trump goal would be to reestablish basic engagement but further policy aims or a precise timetable have not been set, the people said. The issue may take a backseat to more pressing foreign policy concerns in the Middle East and Ukraine, according to one person briefed on the transition’s thinking.
North Korean state media has not yet publicly mentioned the re-election of Trump, and Kim said this month that the United States was ramping up tension and provocations, raising the risks of nuclear war.
Trump and some of his allies left office with the impression that the direct approach was Washington’s best shot at influencing behavior north of the demilitarized zone, which has divided the Korean Peninsula for seven decades. The countries’ war never technically ended even as the guns fell silent.
On Friday, Trump named one of the people who implemented that initial North Korea strategy, former State Department official Alex Wong, as his deputy national security adviser. “As Deputy Special Representative for North Korea, he helped negotiate my Summit with North Korean Leader, Kim Jong Un,” Trump said in a statement.
Trump inherits an increasingly tense situation with Kim when he returns to the White House in January, as he did in 2017, an atmosphere allies expect the incoming president to confront head-on.
“My experience with President Trump is he’s much more likely to be open to direct engagement,” said US Senator Bill Hagerty, a Trump ally, in an interview with Reuters earlier this year. “I’m optimistic that we can see an improvement in the relationship and perhaps a different posture adopted by Kim Jong Un if that dialogue were reopened again.”
Washington has a dossier of concerns over the country’s expanding nuclear weapons and missile program, its increasingly hostile rhetoric to South Korea and its close collaboration with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
These topics are expected to feature in Biden administration transition briefings for Trump aides, according to a US official. The Trump team has yet to sign transition agreements, which could limit the scope of some of these briefings.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
