Trump Is Preparing Another Gamble With Kim Jong Un — And This Time The Price Is Much Higher

Will The Meeting Happen?

Kim Jong Un May Demand The Unthinkable

Donald Trump wants to meet Kim Jong Un again, potentially reopening one of the most extraordinary diplomatic relationships of his first presidency. The difference is that the North Korea waiting for him in 2026 is considerably stronger than the country Trump dealt with in Singapore and Hanoi.

Trump says he expects another meeting with Kim this year. Pyongyang has not agreed to one, but it has conspicuously avoided destroying the possibility altogether, acknowledging the unusual personal relationship between the two leaders while making clear that friendship alone will not determine North Korean policy.

Trump Is Trying Something Conventional Diplomacy Has Failed To Achieve

Trump's instinct is characteristically personal. Rather than treating North Korea exclusively as a problem to be managed through sanctions, military deterrence and layers of diplomatic bureaucracy, he appears to believe direct engagement with Kim can alter the calculation at the very top of the regime.

There is a reasonable argument behind that strategy. Decades of isolation, sanctions and pressure have not eliminated North Korea's nuclear programme. Pyongyang has instead expanded its arsenal, developed increasingly sophisticated missiles and established a deeper strategic relationship with Russia.

Trump therefore confronts an uncomfortable reality. Maintaining exactly the same approach while North Korea becomes progressively better armed is not necessarily the safer option simply because it is the more conventional one.

During his first presidency, Trump became the first sitting US president to meet a North Korean leader. He met Kim in Singapore in 2018, again in Hanoi in 2019 and then crossed into North Korea during their meeting at the Demilitarised Zone later that year.

Those meetings did not produce North Korean denuclearisation. That remains the major weakness in any argument that Trump's first experiment was a complete success.

But they did demonstrate something unusual: Washington and Pyongyang could move from threats of catastrophic military confrontation to direct leader-level diplomacy remarkably quickly.

Trump appears convinced that relationship remains usable.

Trump Has Already Made The First Move

Washington has now substantially reduced its participation in major joint military exercises with South Korea, exercises North Korea has repeatedly characterised as rehearsals for aggression.

Trump has questioned both their cost and the message they send Pyongyang. The move is significant because it gives Kim something tangible before another summit has even been announced.

Critics will inevitably describe that as an unnecessary concession. There is another interpretation.

Trump may be attempting to discover whether North Korea genuinely wants a different relationship or merely wants American concessions while surrendering nothing itself.

Reducing an exercise is reversible. Recognising North Korea permanently as a legitimate nuclear weapons state would be considerably harder to reverse.

That distinction matters enormously.

Trump can create diplomatic space without accepting every condition Kim eventually places on the table. Indeed, his negotiating strength depends on refusing to confuse opening negotiations with agreeing to their outcome.

North Korea's reaction shows why that distinction will be tested.

Pyongyang has dismissed the changes to the exercises as insufficient. North Korea also launched a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles following the latest diplomatic manoeuvring, demonstrating that it intends to negotiate from a position of military strength rather than gratitude.

Pyongyang Is Setting A Much Higher Price

The central problem is no longer simply whether Kim will meet Trump.

It is what Kim expects America to accept before, during or after that meeting.

North Korea has spent years transforming its nuclear arsenal from a bargaining chip into something increasingly resembling a permanent pillar of state security. Pyongyang now wants Washington to approach future negotiations with that reality in mind.

That creates an enormous collision.

The United States has traditionally demanded the denuclearisation of North Korea. The 2018 Singapore declaration itself committed North Korea to work towards complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang's position has hardened substantially since then.

North Korea increasingly treats its possession of nuclear weapons as irreversible. Any attempt to restart negotiations on the assumption that Kim will simply surrender his arsenal in exchange for economic incentives is therefore likely to encounter the same problem that ultimately destroyed the Hanoi negotiations.

Kim believes nuclear weapons protect his regime.

That means the real negotiation may now be over arms limitation rather than complete disarmament: how many weapons North Korea possesses, which missiles it develops, whether testing can be constrained and what economic or security concessions Washington might offer in return.

That would represent a profound shift in American policy.

Why Kim Is Stronger Than He Was In 2018

Trump also faces a Kim Jong Un with more alternatives than he had during their first meetings.

North Korea has deepened its relationship with Russia. Its military relationship with Moscow has increased Pyongyang's strategic importance and reduced the extent to which isolation from Washington leaves the regime without powerful partners.

China remains another crucial economic and strategic factor.

The more support North Korea can obtain elsewhere, the less desperate it becomes for sanctions relief from Washington. That strengthens Kim's negotiating hand.

There is also the nuclear programme itself.

Every additional warhead, missile, test and technological improvement makes the original objective of total denuclearisation harder to obtain. North Korea has effectively spent the years since Hanoi increasing the price America would have to pay for a major agreement.

Trump therefore cannot simply recreate 2018.

He would be entering a different negotiation.

The Case For Trump's Approach

The obvious criticism of Trump is that summit diplomacy risks rewarding Kim with international prestige while producing few concrete concessions.

That criticism deserves to be taken seriously.

But it also needs to be compared with the alternative rather than with an imaginary perfect policy.

North Korea already possesses nuclear weapons. Sanctions have not forced it to surrender them. Military exercises have not stopped the programme. Diplomatic isolation has not removed Kim from power. And the possibility of military action against a nuclear-armed state sitting beside South Korea carries potentially catastrophic consequences.

Talking is therefore not inherently weakness.

It can be a tool of deterrence.

If Trump's relationship with Kim gives Washington a communication channel during a future missile crisis, nuclear confrontation or regional escalation, that relationship itself has strategic value even without an immediate grand bargain.

The strongest version of Trump's strategy would combine that willingness to negotiate with a refusal to make irreversible concessions simply to secure the spectacle of another summit.

Trump can offer Kim something few American presidents could plausibly offer: direct access to the US president and potentially a route towards economic normalisation.

Kim must eventually offer something meaningful in return.

The Biggest Danger Is Paying Before Negotiations Begin

This is where Trump's strategy faces its biggest test.

Scaling back exercises may help create diplomatic momentum, but Washington cannot continually increase the offer merely to persuade Pyongyang to attend a meeting.

There has to be a point at which Kim pays something too.

That could involve limits on nuclear production, missile-testing restrictions, greater transparency, renewed inspections, measures reducing the risk of accidental escalation or eventually a wider arms-control agreement.

Without reciprocal concessions, summit diplomacy becomes politically difficult to defend.

Trump's first negotiations with Kim ultimately collapsed in Hanoi partly because the two sides could not bridge their different expectations over sanctions relief and denuclearisation.

Walking away was important.

Trump demonstrated that his desire for a deal did not mean he would accept any deal.

The same discipline would be even more important now.

South Korea Could Become The Awkward Third Player

There is another complication: Seoul.

American military exercises with South Korea are not simply diplomatic signalling towards Pyongyang. They are part of the military architecture intended to ensure US and South Korean forces can operate together during a crisis.

Reducing them therefore creates concern about readiness and reassurance within South Korea.

Trump will have to balance two objectives that do not fit together neatly: convincing Kim that Washington is prepared to rethink the relationship while convincing Seoul that America is not negotiating away South Korean security.

North Korea may prefer to deal directly with Washington rather than allowing Seoul to control the diplomatic process.

That would give Trump extraordinary leverage, but also considerable responsibility.

Any agreement that reduced tensions would be an enormous achievement for South Korea. Any agreement perceived as leaving Seoul more exposed would produce the opposite result.

Why Another Trump-Kim Summit Could Still Matter

It is easy to mock summit diplomacy because the first Trump-Kim meetings did not eliminate North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

That misses the larger strategic question.

The Korean Peninsula remains one of the few places on Earth where a miscalculation could potentially place nuclear powers in direct confrontation. North Korea continues developing weapons. Sanctions have not solved the problem. Isolation has not solved it either.

Trying diplomacy again is therefore rational.

The target, however, may need to change.

A realistic Trump administration could conclude that immediate complete denuclearisation is no longer obtainable and instead pursue an interim agreement designed to freeze or restrict the threat while preserving denuclearisation as a longer-term objective.

Such an agreement would be controversial.

It might also be better than allowing North Korea's arsenal to expand indefinitely without meaningful constraints.

Trump Has Something Nobody Else Has

The most interesting element of this story remains personal.

North Korea has made clear that its broader hostility towards the United States does not necessarily extend to Trump's relationship with Kim.

That distinction is rare.

Trump spent years being criticised for treating international diplomacy as a series of relationships between powerful individuals. With North Korea, however, the personal relationship may genuinely matter because power is concentrated almost completely around one man.

Kim does not have to win a competitive election. He does not answer to an independent parliament. Major strategic decisions ultimately depend on him.

Access to Kim therefore matters.

Trump has it.

The question is whether he can convert that access into something more durable than photographs and declarations.

What Happens Next

A summit remains possible rather than confirmed. Trump's expected travel to Asia later this year would create an obvious diplomatic window, but Pyongyang has every incentive to keep Washington waiting while attempting to extract further concessions before committing.

That is where Trump should hold the line.

Reducing tensions is sensible. Meeting Kim is sensible. Testing whether the relationship between the two men can produce an agreement is sensible.

Accepting North Korea's entire negotiating position merely to make the meeting happen would not be.

Kim Jong Un appears to understand that Trump genuinely wants another summit. That gives Pyongyang leverage, and it is already using it.

But Trump has leverage too: sanctions relief, diplomatic recognition, economic opportunity and direct access to the most powerful office in the United States.

The first Trump-Kim era was built around the possibility that North Korea might surrender its nuclear weapons in exchange for a radically different future.

The second may begin from a harsher reality.

Kim has more weapons, stronger outside partners and a higher asking price. If Trump can turn the personal relationship into enforceable limits on the North Korean threat without surrendering America's strategic position, another summit could become far more consequential than its critics expect.

The meeting itself would be the easy part.

The deal is where Trump's negotiating reputation would actually be tested.