Flashpoints | Diplomacy | East Asia

Trump Suddenly Wants a Summit With Kim Jong Un. Why Now?

With the Iran war stalled and Seoul slow to deliver on a $350 billion pledge, the U.S. president is dangling a one-on-one summit that could sideline South Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands across the line that divides the two Koreas during their last meeting at Panmunjom, June 30, 2019.

On August 16, President Donald Trump posted an old photograph of himself and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns. The picture, taken during a meeting at the Demilitarized Zone in 2019, showed neither man smiling. 

Hours later, Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, citing his “very good relationship” with Kim as one reason. Two days after that, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was pushing aides to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Kim as early as November, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China.

For a relationship that went cold after the failed Hanoi summit in February 2019, and that stayed cold through the first year and a half of the second Trump term, the sudden urgency raises an obvious question: why now?

The most direct answer is domestic politics. The war Trump launched against Iran remains unresolved (and unpopular), with no clear victory on the horizon. Shifting the story away from Iran carries real appeal – and a North Korea summit would definitely steal the spotlight, judging by the furor the mere idea of such a summit has generated.

A summit with Kim on the sidelines of the Shenzhen gathering would land roughly two weeks after the November 3 midterm elections. That would let Trump announce a foreign policy win in the making without voters being able to judge the actual results of the summit (which, going by past efforts, may well be disappointing). 

The payoff looks less obvious from the vantage of Pyongyang. Kim Jong Un has little incentive to help rescue Trump from sliding approval numbers tied to the drawn-out Iran war.

And then there’s the South Korea factor. Trump’s annoyance with Seoul was on display in the social media post that announced the drawdown of the allies’ joint military exercises. 

South Korea pledged $350 billion in investment as part of a tariff deal reached last year, and the rollout has lagged badly. Trump is reportedly frustrated with the slow pace of the investment; South Korea has even been described as the slowest negotiating partner the administration has dealt with. Bolstering Trump’s irritation are commercial disputes involving American companies and what he views as insufficient South Korean support for U.S. priorities. 

That frustration played into the decision to cut back the drills. Trump framed the move as a both favor to Kim and a jab at Seoul over its refusal to help with the Iran war. He called the joint exercises “costly” and said they “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” toward North Korea, which he described as “unthreatening and respectful” during his time in office.

In light of Trump’s recent remarks, the decision to scale back joint exercises and the summit push send a message to Pyongyang that goes beyond nostalgia for the summit heyday of 2018-19. Trump is signaling that it can bypass Seoul and deal with North Korea directly, at a moment when the alliance with South Korea is already strained over money. 

Kim has reason to welcome exactly that signal. North Korea would likely prefer engaging........

© The Diplomat