Why Kim Jong Un Can’t Take Trump’s Hand
- 5 hours ago
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Despite Trump’s renewed push for diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, fundamental differences over North Korea’s nuclear status, Kim’s stronger strategic position, and growing internal pressures that make another Hanoi too risky may make renewed diplomacy far more difficult—ultimately pushing Washington and Pyongyang toward renewed confrontation.
Key Insights
Trump is once again extending his hand to Kim Jong Un. He has said he plans to meet Kim before the end of the year while ordering a substantial reduction in U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises.
Kim has far less incentive to negotiate with Washington than he did in 2018–19. An expanded nuclear arsenal and deeper ties with Russia and China have strengthened his strategic position, while Pyongyang insists that Washington accept the reality of a nuclear-armed North Korea.
Trump’s outreach should not be mistaken for surrender. Washington cannot simply abandon the goal of North Korea’s denuclearization, and Trump’s approach to other hostile regimes suggests that an offer of diplomacy can be followed by escalating pressure when negotiations fail.
Kim cannot afford another Hanoi. Growing internal pressures mean that another high-profile summit ending without tangible gains could impose significantly greater political costs on Kim than it did in 2019.
The fundamental divide over North Korea’s nuclear status may ultimately push Washington and Pyongyang back toward confrontation. North Korea’s missile launches just hours after Trump expressed his intention to meet Kim may be an early harbinger of what lies ahead.
President Donald Trump is once again extending his hand to Kim Jong Un. On August 19, Trump said he plans to meet Kim before the end of the year. Days earlier, he ordered a substantial reduction in U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises, citing their cost, their provocative nature, and his “very good relationship” with Kim.
The moves have inevitably revived speculation about another Trump-Kim summit. But the more important question is not whether Trump wants to meet Kim.
The question is whether Kim can afford to take Trump’s hand. The answer may be no.
Kim No Longer Needs Washington the Way He Once Did
The Kim Jong Un of 2026 operates in a very different strategic environment from the one who met Trump in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019. North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear and missile capabilities. Its military partnership with Russia has deepened dramatically through the war in Ukraine, including the deployment of North Korean troops and weapons. At the same time, Pyongyang has worked to restore and strengthen its relationship with China.
Kim therefore has far less incentive to seek economic or strategic relief from Washington at the price the United States would demand. And Pyongyang has made its position remarkably clear.
In September 2025, Kim said North Korea could talk with the United States if Washington abandoned its “obsession” with denuclearization and accepted the reality of a nuclear-armed North Korea. He also declared that North Korea would never give up its nuclear weapons.
That leaves Washington with a fundamental problem. For Kim, meaningful negotiations increasingly require American acceptance of North Korea as a permanent nuclear-armed state. For the United States, that remains unacceptable.
Trump Is Offering an Opportunity, Not Surrender
Trump's willingness to meet Kim without preconditions—and his decision to reduce military exercises with South Korea—could create the impression that Washington is gradually moving toward Pyongyang's position. But that would be a dangerous misreading. Washington cannot simply abandon the goal of North Korea’s denuclearization.
There are powerful reasons for this. Accepting North Korea permanently as a nuclear weapons state would have consequences far beyond the Korean Peninsula. It could intensify nuclear proliferation pressures among U.S. allies, weaken the global nonproliferation regime, and set a dangerous precedent that other hostile regimes could follow: defy international pressure, develop nuclear weapons, and eventually force the world to accept them.
Trump's willingness to talk should therefore not be confused with a willingness to abandon America's fundamental strategic objective. Nor should his repeated invitations to Kim necessarily be interpreted as desperation for a summit.
Trump has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for offering adversaries an opportunity to negotiate while retaining—and, when diplomacy fails, escalating—economic or military pressure. Recent confrontations involving Iran and Venezuela have reinforced the message that an offer of negotiation does not necessarily imply an unwillingness to use coercive power later.
Kim has been watching how Trump has dealt with other hostile regimes. The lesson for Kim is difficult to miss: Trump's willingness to negotiate with an adversary does not mean that the alternative to negotiation has disappeared.
If Kim accepts Trump's invitation but refuses any meaningful movement on nuclear weapons, he risks entering a confrontation with an American president who has demonstrated a willingness to escalate pressure when negotiations reach a dead end.
Kim Cannot Afford Another Hanoi
The 2019 Hanoi summit remains one of the most consequential diplomatic failures of Kim Jong Un's rule. For Kim personally, Hanoi was more than a diplomatic failure. It was a public humiliation. He had staked his personal prestige on direct negotiations with an American president, only to return home empty-handed.
But another Hanoi today could be considerably more dangerous. Behind North Korea's increasingly powerful external posture are accumulating sources of internal pressure. As analyzed in The Unraveling of the Kim Regime, these include signs of strain within the elite and military, the regime's extraordinary efforts to suppress South Korean culture and outside information, and the political uncertainty surrounding Kim's apparent grooming of his young daughter as a potential successor.
Most significantly, thousands of North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded fighting for Russia, potentially increasing the domestic costs of Kim's expanding military partnership with Moscow. None of these pressures means that the regime is on the verge of collapse. But together they make political failure at the highest level more costly.
Kim's legitimacy rests heavily on the image of an infallible leader who has transformed North Korea into a nuclear power capable of standing against the United States. Walking into another summit with Trump—and returning home having either made nuclear concessions or been publicly rejected again—would directly challenge that narrative.
Kim absorbed the humiliation of Hanoi once. He may not be able to afford it twice.
Heading Toward Renewed Confrontation
Trump will likely continue extending his hand to Kim Jong Un. But personal diplomacy cannot resolve the fundamental contradiction between them: Kim demands acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear power, while the United States cannot accept it.
So Kim is more likely to retreat further behind his nuclear arsenal while deepening his relationships with Russia and China.
But that choice carries its own danger. As North Korea becomes increasingly intertwined with Russia's war in Europe, nuclear proliferation, missile development, and other threats to international security, the North Korean problem will become less confined to the Korean Peninsula. Washington will not be the only capital with an interest in confronting Pyongyang. Europe, Japan, and other U.S. allies and partners will have growing reasons to increase pressure as well.
What happened on August 20 may be a harbinger of what lies ahead. Just hours after Trump said he planned to meet Kim this year, North Korea fired around 10 short-range ballistic missiles. Kim Yo Jong also dismissed Trump's decision to scale down U.S.-South Korea military exercises as “unworthy of comment.”
The hand Trump is extending to Kim may ultimately prove to be not a bridge to another summit, but a prelude to renewed confrontation.
