Donald Trump said he is open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his upcoming trip to Asia.
“I would. If you want to put out the word, I’m open to it,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he departed, noting that he “had a great relationship” with Kim.
During his first term, Trump made history as the first sitting US president to enter North Korea when they last met in 2019.
On his current trip, Trump will visit Malaysia and Japan, where he will meet several world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, amid ongoing trade negotiations following his administration’s tariff policies earlier this year.
Trump has taken an unusual approach to North Korea, a secretive communist state largely isolated internationally, and its nuclear weapons program. Initially, he referred to Kim as a “little rocket man,” but the two met three times during Trump’s presidency, though no denuclearization agreement was reached. Since then, North Korea has conducted several intercontinental missile tests.
When asked if he would recognize North Korea as a nuclear power, Trump said: “I think they are sort of a nuclear power… They got a lot of nuclear weapons, I’ll say that.”
Kim has indicated he is willing to meet Trump again if the US stops demanding North Korea abandon its nuclear arsenal. “I still have a good memory of President Trump,” Kim said in a recent speech, according to state media.
South Korea’s Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said there is a “considerable” chance the leaders could meet while Trump is in South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, AFP reported.
A senior US official told Anadolu Agency that a meeting is not currently on Trump’s official schedule, though their last encounter at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) followed an invitation Trump issued via social media.
Trump will first stop in Malaysia for the ASEAN summit before arriving in Busan, South Korea, on Wednesday ahead of the Apec summit. He is expected to meet South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who discussed peace on the Korean Peninsula and the possibility of a Trump-Kim meeting during a visit to the White House in August.