North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (R) and U.S. President Donald Trump across the Demarcation Line in the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom during their meeting on June 30, 2019
WASHINGTON, Aug. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — When President Donald J. Trump sat down with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung at the White House on Monday, it did not take long for old ambitions to resurface.
Amid the pleasantries of their first summit since Mr. Lee took office in June, Mr. Trump signaled a desire to revive a diplomatic drama that once dominated his presidency: a face-to-face meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
“I hope you will meet Kim Jong-un and even build a ‘Trump World’ in North Korea so that I can play golf there,” Mr. Lee said, half in jest, at the opening of their talks. “The only person who can truly resolve this issue is President Trump.”
Mr. Trump, smiling, responded: “We will work on that.” Later, he told reporters he would “like to meet him this year,” even as he hedged, calling it “hard to say.”
The exchange immediately stirred speculation over when — and where — such a meeting might happen. Eyes have turned to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, scheduled for late October in Gyeongju, a historic city in southeastern South Korea, where Mr. Trump is expected to attend.
South Korean officials, according to people briefed on the discussions, are weighing the possibility of inviting Mr. Kim to join.
This file photo, carried by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on July 1, 2019, shows the North’s leader Kim Jong-un (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom the previous day. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
If such a summit were to materialize, it would be the first meeting between the two men since their fleeting encounter in the border village of Panmunjom in 2019. That impromptu handshake — following two high-profile summits in Singapore and Hanoi — capped a period of extraordinary pageantry but left the core issue of North Korea’s nuclear program unresolved.
The obstacles now loom larger. North Korea has in recent years deepened its military and economic ties with Russia, securing resource deals in exchange for dispatching troops, and Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s powerful sister, has dismissed the prospect of renewed dialogue if denuclearization remains on the table.
For Pyongyang, experts say, the calculus is simple: recognition as a nuclear power is the ultimate goal. Washington, by contrast, has remained firm in demanding denuclearization, making common ground elusive.
“From Kim Jong-un’s perspective, a new summit should come with expectations for tangible results,” said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University. “Without such results, it will be difficult for him to return to the dialogue table.”
Even so, some analysts detect glimmers of possibility. In mid-August, Kim Yo-jong said talks would remain merely “the hope of the U.S. side” unless Washington abandoned its “outdated” thinking — language many interpreted as leaving the door ajar for dialogue that sidesteps denuclearization.
That could open the way to what some call a “small deal”: a freeze on nuclear production or limited disarmament, rather than full dismantlement, which Mr. Trump might be eager to brand as a breakthrough.
Whether Mr. Kim would seize such an opportunity is another question. But Mr. Trump, whose presidency has often been defined by headline-grabbing diplomacy, appears eager for another chance to play peacemaker.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
