President Donald Trump is reportedly pursuing another summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, whom he once said that he “fell in love” with through letters
US officials have revealed that President Donald Trump is pursuing another meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.
The US leader is urging aides to arrange a sit-down as early as November, the Wall Street Journal reports. This development follows Trump’s efforts to revitalize a diplomatic objective from his first term aimed at persuading Kim to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
Sources indicate that Trump has privately explored organizing a face-to-face discussion with Kim during his upcoming Asia trip, potentially scheduled for November when world leaders convene at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China.
News of Trump’s desire to meet Kim emerged after the president announced his decision to “substantially reduce” joint military exercises with South Korea, referencing his “very good relationship” with Kim, whom he once claimed he “fell in love” with through their letter exchanges.
Around a decade ago, such a meeting would have seemed unlikely when Trump declared in 2017 that North Korea would be “met with fire,” while dubbing the nation’s leader “little rocket man.”
The North Korean leader responded by calling Trump a “mentally deranged US dotard” and vowing to “tame him with fire”. After Kim indicated readiness to strike America following a missile test, Trump addressed the UN General Assembly in September 2017, warning he would “totally destroy” North Korea and that “rocket man is on a suicide mission”.
North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho characterized the statement as a declaration of war, yet it ultimately set in motion a sequence of events that culminated in an unexpected face-to-face meeting between the two leaders.
In September 2018, Trump told a crowd of supporters in West Virginia had overcome their hostilities as he said they “fell in love” by exchanging letters to each other.
“He wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love,” he said. Trump and Kim went on to meet in person on three occasions, all of which took place during Trump’s first term in office.
Their inaugural meeting was held in Singapore in 2018, producing a joint statement on denuclearization. The two leaders convened again in Vietnam in 2019, but the summit collapsed without a deal due to deep divisions over sanctions relief and nuclear disarmament.
Later that same year, the pair met at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with Trump making history as the first sitting U.S. president to cross the military demarcation line into North Korean territory.