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As President Donald Trump looks to revive summit diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, he faces a North Korea with a larger nuclear arsenal, a powerful new partner in Russia and far less incentive to strike a deal than it had during his first term.
Trump’s renewed outreach comes as he remains locked in a nuclear standoff with Iran, reopening another piece of unfinished business from his first term. Unlike Iran, however, North Korea already possesses a mature nuclear arsenal and multiple delivery systems, leaving Trump with little prospect of eliminating the threat militarily and a narrower path to a deal than he had eight years ago.
Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump may see renewed North Korea diplomacy as both a chance to shift attention from Iran and an opportunity to reduce the number of adversaries confronting the United States.
“I think he frankly wants to take the headlines off of Iran,” Cha told Digital, arguing that Trump also sees North Korea as a fundamentally different nuclear challenge. “There really isn’t a military solution for a country like North Korea that has 50, 60, 70 nuclear weapons and several delivery systems for those weapons.”
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President Donald Trump, right, stands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during their summit on Sentosa Island in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
That leaves a sweeping denuclearization agreement increasingly out of reach. A more limited negotiation could instead focus on restricting nuclear and long-range missile tests, establishing crisis communications, weakening Pyongyang’s growing ties with Moscow or reaching a peace agreement that leaves Kim’s nuclear arsenal intact.
“There is no grand bargain with North Korea that quickly eliminates the country’s nuclear arsenal,” Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, told Digital. “North Korea can drive a harder bargain now than it could have in 2018.”
Trump said this week that he expects to meet Kim before the end of the year. He has cast the personal relationship that produced their earlier meetings as an asset for restarting diplomacy.
“I get along with him,” Trump said. “And you know what? The fact that I get along with him, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone in Panmunjom, South Korea, on June 30, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
A White House official told Digital on background that the leaders “will meet at the appropriate time,” but the official did not provide a date, location or details about preparations.
Trump’s potential payoff is a limited agreement that reduces the immediate nuclear danger rather than eliminates North Korea’s arsenal. Cha identified several objectives short of denuclearization, including formally banning nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, reducing Pyongyang’s ties with Moscow and establishing a crisis-management channel between the United States and North Korea.
Cha said Trump is also likely interested in a peace declaration or treaty that would allow him to claim progress on a conflict that has remained technically unresolved since the 1953 armistice.
Washington’s bargaining chips include phased sanctions relief, reductions in military exercises or U.S. force posture, a possible peace agreement and the political value of direct engagement with the U.S. president. For Kim, a deal that leaves his nuclear weapons intact could itself look like progress toward the regime’s long-running goal of winning de facto acceptance as a nuclear weapons state.
Kim may also have another reason to keep Trump engaged. Cha pointed to the president’s willingness to use military force during his second term, arguing that North Korea may see continued contact with Trump as a way to reduce the risk of a confrontation.
Trump may have already made his first negotiating play. Cha pointed to the president’s reduction in joint exercises with South Korea, a step Trump also took during his first round of diplomacy with Kim.
North Korea dismissed the move as insufficient and launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters the following day.
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President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet inside the demilitarized zone in Panmunjom, South Korea, on June 30, 2019. (Handout photo by Dong-A Ilbo via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Anthony Ruggiero, who served as the National Security Council director for North Korea during Trump’s first term, said the reduced exercises fit a pattern established during the president’s earlier diplomacy with Kim.
“I’m kind of surprised that people are surprised. President Trump took the same action in his first term, and the only thing that’s really surprising is not that he did it; it’s that he waited this long to do it,” Ruggiero told Digital.
At their 2018 Singapore summit, Kim signed a broad pledge to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The agreement set no timetable or verification terms, and Pyongyang now rejects denuclearization as the basis for negotiations.
Eight years ago, Kim was under heavier pressure from U.N. Security Council sanctions and a worsening food situation, Cha said.
“And in many ways, Trump had the leverage. It’s a very different situation now,” Cha said.
That leverage has shifted in part because of North Korea’s deepening relationship with Russia. Pyongyang’s weapons and troop support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine have brought it closer to a powerful partner capable of providing economic and military support while shielding North Korea from additional accountability at the U.N. Security Council. China also remains a crucial economic partner.
Even so, sanctions relief could still be a powerful incentive. Ruggiero said pressure loses force if the United States does not keep closing the workarounds North Korea uses to evade it.
“The North Koreans always complain that the sanctions don’t hurt them, but then that’s the first thing they always ask for,” he said.
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The intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 is seen in this undated photo released by North Korea’s news agency. ( )
The recovery of American war dead could also provide Trump with a concrete humanitarian result. The Singapore agreement included a commitment to recover the remains of U.S. service members killed in North Korea during the Korean War, and Pyongyang returned 55 boxes believed to contain American remains in 2018.
A future agreement could seek to restart recovery efforts inside North Korea, where joint U.S.-North Korean recovery operations last took place in 2005.
But a sweeping disarmament deal remains unlikely. Davenport said Trump should instead focus on measures that reduce nuclear risk and slow the program’s growth, including a missile-test moratorium, crisis communication and a potential freeze on nuclear development.
“The ideal would be a return of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, but that’s not going to happen early in the process,” Davenport said.
She said satellite imagery could still help monitor reactor operations, plutonium reprocessing and missile testing, even if verifying a halt in uranium enrichment would be far more difficult.
A direct crisis-management channel could carry value of its own — Washington has no established direct military line to Pyongyang.
“If all of a sudden our radars pick up a ballistic missile flying through the air, we have no way of contacting North Korea to ask them, ‘Is this your intent? Did you send this?’” Cha said.
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Cha also sees a measure of restraint in North Korea’s recent record. Pyongyang conducted several intercontinental ballistic missile tests during the Biden administration, including launches in 2022, 2023 and 2024, but has not tested an ICBM in flight since Trump returned to office. North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test since 2017.
Any agreement would also test the U.S.-South Korea alliance. Seoul may welcome renewed dialogue after years without negotiations, Cha said, but it will be wary of concessions involving U.S. troop levels or exercises.
Cha said South Korea likely did not know in advance that Trump would reduce military exercises, but Seoul could still view renewed U.S.-North Korea negotiations as a net positive if they restart diplomacy. Longer term, however, South Korea would want a role in the negotiations and assurances that its alliance interests are not sacrificed in a deal with Pyongyang.
“Where the rubber really hits the road on this is the whole question of U.S. troops in Korea because North Korea would like them out, South Korea would like them to stay, and it’s not entirely clear what President Trump wants,” Cha said.
