Trump says he will 'get the conflict solved with North Korea'

Japan Times

4 hours ago

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said he would 'get the conflict solved with North Korea,' while also saying that such a conflict "wouldn't involve us.'
Asked about a report that the North Korean side had refused to accept a letter from Trump to Kim aimed at kick-starting long-stalled bilateral talks, the U.S. president did not answer the question, but instead touted his ties with Kim.
'I get along with him very, very well, and we'll get the conflict solved with North Korea,' Trump told reporters at a White House event. 'Somebody's saying there's a potential conflict, I think we'll work it out.'
It wasn't clear what conflict Trump was speaking about, but the North has ratcheted up tensions with U.S.-allied South Korea in recent years by testing advanced weapons at an unprecedented clip.
Trump also appeared to inadvertently spotlight fears among U.S. allies that, under his administration, Washington could put their security in jeopardy by not adhering to alliance commitments.
'If there is (a conflict), it wouldn't involve us,' Trump said. 'We're very far away from a lot of these places."
NK News, a website that monitors North Korea, quoted an unidentified source earlier this month as saying that the United States had attempted to deliver a Trump-drafted letter multiple times through North Korean diplomats stationed at United Nations headquarters in New York, but they "bluntly" refused. It was not clear when the attempts had been made.
Trump said in late March that his administration had been in touch with Kim, and that the two sides could engage each other 'at some point.'
The U.S. leader, who met with Kim three times during his first term and became the first sitting American president to enter North Korea, has repeatedly called Pyongyang a "nuclear power," raising questions about whether he could pursue arms-reduction talks rather than return to the denuclearization efforts that ultimately failed in his first term in any attempt to reengage with Kim.
White House officials, however, have ruled out such a scenario, saying that Trump 'will pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea, just as he did in his first term."
Trump has spooked U.S. allies like South Korea, which hosts 28,500 U.S, troops, with his transactional approach to the alliances, fueling doubts about Washington's commitment to protecting the country.
Amid negotiations over punishing U.S. tariffs on South Korea, Trump and his team have at times sought to link trade and security issues, including demands that Seoul cough up more cash for its own defense and for hosting American forces.
But regardless of the White House's approach to the Korean Peninsula, it's unclear if North Korea is even interested in returning to talks in the first place.
Kim is in a vastly different position than in 2019, when the summit diplomacy between the two sides broke down. In the years since, it has prioritized its nuclear weapons and missile programs, testing a spate of advanced weapons.
The country is now estimated to have assembled around 50 nuclear warheads, possess enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more and is accelerating the production of even more fissile material, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Last November, Kim called for a 'limitless' expansion of his country's military nuclear program. In January, he used a key ruling party meeting to announce North Korea's 'toughest' ever strategy to counter the United States, though details of that strategy were scant.
Trump's decision to attack key Iranian nuclear sites earlier this month could also play into Kim's calculus, observers say, further cementing his view that parting with his nuclear weapons would spell doom for his regime.
Still, the North has so far taken a muted approach to dealing with Trump himself — though it's unclear how long this period of relative calm will last before Pyongyang again attempts to capture his attention.
Experts have said Kim could eventually try to shift Trump's focus to the North Korean nuclear issue with a dramatic missile launch or seventh nuclear test.