InterviewTrump’s Asia tour fuels speculation over peacemaker diplomacy with N. Korea
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, right, and then-U.S. President Donald Trump move to shake hands at the border village of Panmunjeom in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas, June 30, 2019. AP-Yonhap
U.S. President Donald Trump’s upcoming Asia tour, which begins late Friday (Washington time) with his first stop in Malaysia, has raised a pressing question: Will he attempt to broker another peace deal — this time on the Korean Peninsula — following his decisive role in securing the Gaza ceasefire earlier this month?
Trump will arrive in Busan on Wednesday after wrapping up a three-day visit to Japan, where he is scheduled to meet South Korean President Lee Jae Myung for a summit.
He will also deliver a keynote address at a luncheon for CEOs on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) event in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. Later that day, he will attend a U.S.-APEC leaders’ working dinner. On Thursday, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to hold a summit on the sidelines of the APEC event.
But one potential encounter, if realized, could overshadow all others: another handshake with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Trump met Kim briefly in 2019 at Panmunjeom, the border village dividing the two Koreas, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to step onto North Korean soil. Could history repeat itself?
Hahm Sung-deuk, dean of the Graduate School of Political Studies and Naun Chair professor of political science and law at Kyonggi University in Seoul, says the possibility of a Trump-Kim meeting during the U.S. president's visit to South Korea cannot be ruled out.
“Like he did in the Middle East, Trump will likely try to broker peace between the two Koreas,” he said.
According to Hahm, Trump’s peacemaker ambitions stem from a deep-seated belief that wars ultimately burden the American public. “Like his role model Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president, Trump is a political outsider. Both are populists who prioritized ordinary Americans over political and business elites, and both rose to power by challenging the establishment,” he said.
Hahm added that Trump views war as a tool of the political establishment — the so-called military-industrial complex which some others call alternatively “deep state” — from which elites profit.
“He seeks to end wars because ordinary Americans suffer their consequences,” Hahm said, adding that the Nobel Peace Prize may also be another driving force behind Trump’s peace efforts.
Trump has a track record of mediation to bring peace. During his first term, he helped broker the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, after which the two became the first Middle Eastern countries to recognize Israel. More recently, he played a key role in the Gaza ceasefire and has been involved in efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Hahm Sung-deuk, dean of the Graduate School of Political Studies and Naun Chair professor of political science and law at Kyonggi University / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
Hahm believes that South Korea’s own flawed North Korea policies have created space for Trump’s reentry into peacebuilding on the peninsula. “Both conservatives and progressives in South Korea are unrealistic in their approaches,” he said. “The right insists on complete denuclearization, which is impossible considering that North Korea already has dozens of nuclear weapons and will never give them up. That vision is outdated.”
Progressives, he added, are equally naive, if not wrong, in believing that continued engagement will lead Pyongyang to disarm and open up to the world. “With its advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S., North Korea’s nuclear program is now a global security threat,” Hahm said. “There’s little South Korea can do.”
Trump, Hahm argued, understands that the positions of both South Korean camps are unworkable.
“He will take a different approach,” Hahm said. “Instead of demanding complete denuclearization, he might propose freezing North Korea’s nuclear arsenal in exchange for economic incentives. This is because he knows Pyongyang won’t dismantle it completely.”
In December 2023, Politico reported that Trump was considering allowing North Korea to retain its existing nuclear weapons while offering financial rewards to halt further production.
Trump denied the report. “A fake news article in Politico through anonymous sources (as usual!) claims my views on North Korea’s nuclear weapons have softened,” he wrote on social media.
Whether Trump’s stance on North Korea has changed since then remains unclear.