The future of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un’s curious relationship
2025-01-28
Category: news

The cameras struggled to get a steady shot as Donald Trump took his first historic steps into enemy territory with Kim Jong Un. It was 2019 and the then-45th president of the United States patted the arm of the North Korean leader, then on cue, Kim led him across the threshold that separates his country from South Korea - two countries officially still at war.Behind them, within the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), it was chaos as TV crews jostled to get a clear view through a line of North Korean bodyguards who seemed surprised by the onslaught of US media. At one point, a reporter asked for help and the White House press secretary had to pull them from behind a line of security to the Trump-Kim photo call.This meeting had been hastily organised – and it showed."I never expected to meet you at this place," said Kim to Trump.
The US president had organised the last-minute rendezvous on Twitter, as it was then known, just 30 hours earlier when he suggested meeting Chairman Kim at the DMZ "just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!"The impromptu invitation created a third and last incredible TV moment between a showman president and a once reclusive dictator.Now, it appears there could be more. Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview broadcast last Thursday that he will once again "reach out" to Kim."I got along with him," Trump added. "He is not a religious zealot. He happens to be a smart guy."The BBC understands that there has been very little contact between the US and North Korea in the last four years during the Biden administration. Washington has sent messages but there has been no reply from Pyongyang.
The last meeting between the two nations, when Trump was last in office, did not advance a longed-for deal to get North Korea to give up its prized possession – its nuclear weapons.Since then, Kim has advanced his missile programme and claims to have successfully tested a hypersonic missile, despite being subject to strict international sanctions. It's a far cry from when Trump used to boast that the two "fell in love".The question is, can the relationship be rekindled - or could it be a very different picture this time around?Washington will, after all, be dealing with a very different Kim now. In the last four years his alliances and fortunes have shifted - and his relationship with another world leader appears to have strengthened too. So, could it mean that this has all changed his dynamic with Trump for good?
Could their relationship be rekindled?
"It's definitely a possibility," says Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and the director of Stimson's Korea Program."You can tell by Donald Trump's decision to appoint a special envoy for sensitive issues that include North Korea, I think it gives you an indication of kind of where his thinking is on that right now."Trump has brought back some of those who helped set up his summits with Kim, including the former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell who has been picked as his presidential envoy for special missions on "some of the hottest spots" around the world, including North Korea.But there have been changes in the intervening years.
"North Korea will spend the first year trying to prove to Trump that Kim Jong Un isn't who he was in 2017 - that he's militarily stronger, that he's politically stronger, and that, if they ever get back to that point, it's going to be a very different negotiation," argues Ms Town.Kim is also embracing a new friend – Russia's President Vladimir Putin. He has helped North Korea with food and fuel in return for weapons and soldiers for his war effort in Ukraine. Pyongyang is no longer as desperate for relief from US sanctions.
North Korea 'primed' people for Trump
Rachel Minyoung Lee, who worked as a senior North Korean media analyst for the U.S. government told the BBC that Pyongyang has "primed" its people by informing them in state media about Donald Trump's return. But she believes the "bar for entering talks will now be higher than before.""Two things will have to happen," she added. "North Korea is desperate enough to return to the negotiating table, for example due to a crumbling economy or a significant cooling off in its relations with Russia; or the United States makes an offer to North Korea that is drastically different from what it did in the past."
Trump sparked speculation that he is willing to restart talks with Kim during a recent signing ceremony in the Oval Office, when he said: "I was very friendly with him. He liked me. I liked him. We got along very well."But the Trump administration should be realistic this time around, says Sydney Seiler who until last year was the national intelligence officer for North Korea on the U.S. National Intelligence Council."The arms control thing is a red herring. There is no arms control to be had with North Korea. We've tried arms control," he said."Maybe North Korea will sit and talk, and maybe they'll refrain from long range missile launches, and they'll not conduct a seventh nuclear test, and the issue will be largely manageable. That's the best-case scenario. "The worst-case scenario is that even if you talk, they'll continue to launch, they'll continue to test. So, Donald Trump would have to consider: what is the value of engaging North Korea?"Especially because they will both carry significant scars from their last meeting.
Selfies, photo opps and a cancelled lunch
I watched the Winter Olympics in 2018 in South Korea's chilly Pyeongchang with an unexpected guest – sitting below my balcony seat was Kim's sister. It was the first time a member of the Kim family had visited the South since the end of the Korean War, a visit that elicited a loud scream of surprise from my South Korean producer. Sitting near her on the stands was the U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. From what I observed, they could barely look at each other. But still it was an extraordinary step for diplomacy, and one that would have been unimaginable a few months ago.
When Trump took office in January 2017, he had been warned about North Korea. The last three presidents had tried and failed to pressure the state to give up its nuclear weapons after several rounds of talks and sanctions.After Donald Trump's Inauguration, Kim fired a missile almost every month. The president took to Twitter to air his wrath threatening to rain down 'fire and fury' on North Korea. He dubbed Kim as "Little Rocket Man", in return Pyongyang nicknamed Trump "Dotard".Then came threats about pressing nuclear buttons, first from Pyongyang, then Washington.
Trump wrote on Twitter that he too had a nuclear button, "but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"After a year of acrimonious exchanges and brinkmanship that had some in Seoul wondering if they should plan for war – everything changed.The liberal South Korean president, Moon Jae-in had been hoping for an icebreaker with Pyongyang. He was born in a refugee camp after his parents fled the war in the North. He had even visited his aunt there in a rare family exchange between the two countries.When Pyongyang opened the door a crack and asked - could North Korea take part in the Winter Olympics? Seoul, led by Moon, kicked it wide open.
Trump arrived in Singapore for his summit with Kim promising to make history.The North Korean leader took a night-time stroll through glitzy downtown and took selfies as if he was on a night out with the boys. He'd barely travelled outside his own borders - but he was proving that he too knew how to put on a show.But even after his much-photographed handshake with Trump, this now very personal form of diplomacy produced very little in the way of concrete promises for North Korea to disarm.They both signed a vaguely worded statement to work towards denuclearisation and promised to meet again.The stakes were higher for the second Trump and Kim show in Vietnam. Photo-ops would not be enough from a US president who bragged about his deal-making prowess.We waited for hours in the humid streets of Hanoi outside the gates of the French colonial Metropole Hotel, where we were initially told the pair were having lunch.But it turned out, lunch had been cancelled.
Gambles that did not pay off
The BBC has spoken to three people who took part in the summit to piece together what went wrong. It seems both leaders may have overestimated the hand they had to play.Trump offered to lift U.S. sanctions on North Korea if Kim gave up all his nuclear weapons, nuclear material and nuclear facilities.The president had reportedly been warned that the North had turned this deal down in the past, but he felt his personal rapport with the North Korean leader would help him succeed.It did not.Kim gambled on Trump accepting a more modest deal. He too thought their personal relationship would allow him to prevail. He offered to dismantle his aging Yongbyon nuclear complex for an end to all US sanctions since 2016.
"Singapore had given Kim Jong Un some prestige and the belief that finally, the United States is coming to its senses and talking to me on my own terms," says Mr Seiler."He came to the table expecting, because he had been coached, we know, quietly, by the South Koreans who were saying, Donald Trump is politically desperate, he is no longer listening to John Bolton, he is willing to agree to a deal that puts a small part of your nuclear program on the table in return for sanctions relief."But the president had also been briefed. He had been told that the North could still produce uranium at an enrichment centre near Pyongyang. The U.S. said it had been monitoring other sites the North thought they'd kept secret for some time."I think that they were surprised that we knew," Trump later said.The deal Kim offered was not nothing, but it was not good enough for the US president. "Kim Jong Un comes to the table and he had no plan B," says Mr Seiler. "So, when Donald Trump says we've got to do more than this, Kim Jong Un remains totally inflexible."
Did Kim try to save the deal?
The BBC understands from its sources that Kim tried to save the deal. He sent an aide to remind Washington what was on the table and that they would dismantle all of the Yongbyon plant.But Trump was already heading to the airport."The story of Hanoi needs to be gotten right," says Mr Seiler. "The common theme is Donald Trump walked out of the room. It was an all or nothing deal, and when Kim Jong Un wasn't willing to put it all on the table, Donald Trump walked. That's a very simplistic pedestrian assessment of what transpired at Hanoi."As Trump flew back to Washington, the North Koreans took the unprecedented step of holding a press conference. Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters that this opportunity may never come again.It hasn't as yet  - and Kim may think twice about taking part in talks again.
"There definitely was an opportunity there," says Jenny Town."Kim Jong Un had actually built-up domestic expectation in North Korea that they were on the verge of a breakthrough, and that it was going to bring benefits.""If we could have taken advantage of that moment, we could have been on a very different track. Were you going to get denuclearisation easily? Absolutely not. But would we be in a very different place in terms of tensions on the Korean Peninsula and how far North Korea has gone in its nuclear development, maybe. We'll never know, obviously, but there was definitely a will there that doesn't exist now."Donald Trump's unorthodox diplomacy reduced tensions for a while, but it did not stop the expansion of Pyongyang's weapons programme.His 20 steps into North Korean territory may also have legitimised a regime with one of the worst human rights records on the planet.But after three meetings and there appeared to be a connection between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un that offered some hope that one day there would be peace on the Korean Peninsula.Top picture credit: Getty Images
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