Can Trump’s ties with Kim Jong-un lead to denuclearisation?

Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang are fast intensifying.

Top diplomats from the US, South Korea and Japan recently affirmed their commitment to the “complete denuclearisation” of North Korea, drawing Pyongyang’s ire and a renewed pledge to bolster its nuclear forces.

The reference to North Korea’s denuclearisation is also a marked departure from past US positions prioritising denuclearisation across the entire Korean Peninsula.

Despite singling out North Korea, Washington has so far failed to deter the country’s increased nuclear testing activity and military demonstrations.

Yet, US President Donald Trump is confident that he can re-establish personal rapport with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and see US priorities through.

Here’s why this is easier said than done.

Challenges to reciprocity

Kim has little incentive to reciprocate Trump’s overtures.

Since their last diplomatic engagement broke down in 2019, Kim has grown more confident in his ability to advance missile tests and sidestep negotiations.

In 2023 alone, he oversaw the testing of scores of short- and medium-range missiles. He holds that North Korean nuclear weapons are not a ‘bargaining chip’.

Washington’s push to deepen the US-South Korea-Japan trilateral security partnership has done few favours: Kim views these trilateral military exercises and international sanction threats as proof that North Korean security faces multiple regional threats.

Trump may find it difficult to use personal ties to secure Kim’s approval for talks. Unlike 2018, Kim has little incentive to seek stable relations with Washington.

“At a time when the global divide between liberal and illiberal parts of the world is rapidly widening, Pyongyang now views isolation from the West (including South Korea), and closer alignment with illiberal powers, as its path to survival and growth,” Tianran Xu, a senior analyst at Open Nuclear Network, tells TRT World.

Motivations have also changed. In 2019, Kim-Trump negotiations were seen as a historic opportunity to limit Pyongyang’s isolation on the world stage, chiefly through sanctions relief.

Today, that equation has changed: North Korea maintains an active role in the Ukraine-Russia war, raising possibilities of financial, military and technological support without counting on US sanctions relief.

Confidence-building with Pyongyang, allies

It remains to be seen if South Korea and Japan would welcome Trump’s personal diplomacy push.

First, Seoul has good reason to be sceptical. Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks on Pyongyang’s nuclear status risk undermining Seoul’s long-standing position on the North.

Pushback became evident after Pete Hegseth, the then-nominee for US defence secretary, described North Korea as a ‘nuclear power’ in written answers to the US Senate.

The move drew a quick rebuke from South Korea, which maintains that the North can never be regarded as a nuclear-armed state.

Trump showed little regard for Seoul’s concerns by reinforcing Hegseth’s nuclear remarks – something analysts view as important given that the complete denuclearisation of North Korea requires Seoul and Washington to work in tandem.

Thus, Seoul and Tokyo face an uphill task of adjusting to Trump’s unorthodox diplomacy style.

“They would have to develop confidence that their security interests would be served by Trump having such contacts and interactions with Kim,” Sydney Seiler, senior adviser at the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), tells TRT World.

Seiler, who previously served as the director for Korea on the US National Security Council, also warns that Japan and South Korea will have to demonstrate to their public that they support President Trump’s approach to North Korea.

Beyond domestic dynamics, there is also a need to promote confidence-building measures (CBMs) that mirror the compromises from 2018 and 2019.

At the time, larger-scale US-South Korea military exercises were suspended to facilitate negotiations with Kim. These steps were seen as CBMs in Pyongyang and helped prepare the ground for a major Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi.

But such CBMs may prove difficult to advance this time.

Hardline conservatives in South Korea consider joint drills a fixture in US-South Korea ties and resist any break in these exercises.

Moreover, if Trump keeps joint military drills intact, he may struggle to dial down the existing threat perceptions with Kim. Measures bridging the trust deficit are key to ensuring the North Korean leader responds to Trump’s diplomatic overtures.

Even if the dialogue is back on the agenda, divergent views on deterrence stand in Trump’s way.

Robert Peters, a research fellow for Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense at the Heritage Foundation, says South Korea is far more open to “a more muscular response, potentially to include a South Korean deterrence posture” against North Korea.

Washington seems ill-positioned to back aggressive options, which could undermine Trump’s bid to revive his unusually strong rapport with Kim.

Constraints seem to outweigh opportunities in Trump’s push for personal diplomacy with Kim. After all, Washington is yet to deliver on its commitment to the complete denuclearisation of North Korea, and it lacks tangible leverage to bring Kim back to the table.