There was talk at the time of the two leaders falling “in love”—however, the past couple years of Biden’s Pentagon parking a nuclear submarine at a South Korean port has done much to undo these good will displays. Washington has requested that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons development, while Kim has demanded nothing less than full sanctions relief.

What will the policy be under the second Trump White House?

“US president-elect Donald Trump’s team is discussing pursuing direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, hoping a fresh diplomatic push can lower the risks of armed conflict, according to two people familiar with the matter,” South China Morning Post and Reuters report Tuesday.

While Trump’s transition team has said nothing official on the issue as yet, insider sources say a return to direct diplomacy is hopeful:

Several in Trump’s team now see a direct approach from Trump, to build on a relationship that already exists, as most likely to break the ice with Kim, years after the two traded insults and what Trump called “beautiful” letters in an unprecedented diplomatic effort during his first term in office, the people said.

As for the North Korean side, it doesn’t seem in any hurry, or at least is building leverage in anticipation of potential near-future Trump overtures.

The Wall Street Journal summarized Kim’s reaction as of last week as follows:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to rebuff the prospect of reviving his nuclear diplomacy with President-elect Donald Trump, according to his first public remarks about disarmament talks since the election.

North Korea’s state media reported Friday that the 40-year-old dictator called the U.S. a superpower that operated by force rather than a will to coexist and belittled the value that previous talks had for his cash-strapped regime.   

Kim was quoted in a speech days ago as saying, “We have already explored every possible avenue in negotiating with the US.”

He cited Washington’s “unchanging aggressive and hostile policy” toward North Korea, which has included stepped-up joint US-South Korean military exercises on the peninsula.

Earlier on the Trump campaign trail…

Trump says Kim Jong-un probably misses him pic.twitter.com/iGJ10hlbAK

— Kolja Barghoorn (@MitAktien) July 21, 2024

It’s possible that if Trump is able to oversee peace in Ukraine, which he is pledging to begin in earnest from day one of entering the Oval Office, things could stabilize with US-North Korea relations as well.

But looming large as a complicating factor is North Korea’s sending some 10,000 of its troops to Russia, where they are reportedly assisting Moscow forces in pushing back Ukraine’s occupation of the southern Kursk region. Kiev has used this to decry the ‘internationalization’ of the war, despite NATO having injected billions of dollars and heavy weaponry on Ukraine’s side.