Trump says Kim Jong Un has responded to his outreach after US cuts South Korea drills

WASHINGTON, DC: It is the old friends' reunion. Donald Trump has confirmed that Kim Jong Un has responded to his outreach after months of signaling his desire to reconnect with the North Korean leader.

The President's revelation came just a day after he announced that he has ordered Pete Hegseth to significantly reduce military exercises with South Korea, saying it would be “totally inappropriate and hostile” towards North Korea, which has been “unthreatening and respectful” during his presidency.

Kim Jong Un responds to Trump's outreach

Trump on Monday, August 17, was felicitating a 16-year-old lifeguard for saving a 10-year-old Indian-origin boy from getting washed away at a California beach last month, when a reporter asked why Kim had not responded to his efforts to reengage.

“He has,” Trump responded but refrained from offering further details. White House officials and North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond when asked to comment.

Trump's once-prominent relationship with Kim Jong Un has received far less attention during his second term than it did during his first, when the two leaders held historic summits and exchanged letters in 2018 and 2019.

Their diplomatic push ultimately stalled after the Hanoi summit ended without a deal, with negotiations breaking down over North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

Last year, Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, acknowledged that her brother's personal relationship with Trump was “not bad,” but warned that any US attempt to leverage that rapport to pressure Pyongyang into abandoning its nuclear weapons program would only invite “mockery.”

Since Trump's last meeting with Kim in 2019, North Korea has deepened its ties with Russia while maintaining its longstanding relationship with China.

Trump's administration has repeatedly criticized North Korea's military support for Russia in Ukraine, but on Monday the president said “Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect.”

Analysts question North Korea's response to Trump's outreach

Trump, on Sunday, while announcing the decision to scale back military drills with South Korea, maintained that drills were “not only costly ... but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.”

Analysts say that despite Kim's reluctance to embrace Trump's recent overtures and North Korea's stronger strategic position since their last summit, a fresh meeting between the two leaders remains a possibility.

However, Victor Cha, head of the Korea program at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, raised doubts over North Korea's intentions to revert immediately.

“I think they're going to bide their time and wait a little bit,” he said to a source.

Cha said part of Trump's motivation for raising North Korea again appeared to be to shift headlines away from his struggles with the Iran war, although he was clearly interested in seeing Kim again.

Meanwhile, Andrew Yeo at Washington's Brookings Institution believes that the possible meeting would be in Kim's interest.

“Some say ​that there's no reason why ⁠Kim Jong Un would want to meet Trump because he has Russia and China now in his pocket. But on the flip side, I feel like he has nothing to lose by meeting Trump because he has Russia and China in his pocket,” he said.