In a surprising on-the-record briefing with reporters Wednesday, former and current U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed plans to hold a long-awaited meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before the end of 2026, marking the first face-to-face encounter between the two leaders since Trump began his second presidential term. The confirmation came as Trump answered questions from journalists during a walking tour of a newly constructed helipad on the White House grounds, offering little additional logistical detail beyond his basic commitment to the summit.
Unconfirmed reporting from The Wall Street Journal has since shed light on potential timing, indicating the meeting could be scheduled to align with Trump’s already planned November trip to China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit, a convenient arrangement that would avoid adding a separate, high-stakes diplomatic journey to the president’s already packed fall schedule.
In a striking departure from the vague, generalized assessments of North Korea’s nuclear program that have become standard for sitting U.S. presidents, Trump offered an unusually specific count of Pyongyang’s atomic stockpile, stating that Kim currently holds 57 “very powerful” nuclear weapons. The president went on to acknowledge that the proliferation of North Korea’s nuclear program should never have been allowed to progress to its current state, a comment that implicitly criticizes the policy choices of previous administrations. Even so, he emphasized that the current reality of North Korea’s nuclear status cannot be ignored, and framed his longstanding personal rapport with Kim as a unique asset for U.S. diplomacy.
The announcement of the planned meeting comes at a particularly fraught moment for U.S. foreign policy, as Trump is currently leading active military operations against Iran, a campaign he has explicitly justified on the grounds of blocking Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons. Trump defended the apparent contradiction of pursuing diplomacy with a nuclear-armed North Korea while waging war to stop Iran from acquiring the same capability, arguing that the two scenarios are fundamentally separate. “I can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he’s going to be fine,” Trump told reporters, drawing a clear distinction between his approach to the two nations rooted in his personal relationship with the North Korean leader.
Wednesday’s confirmation is the latest in a series of steps Trump has taken to reset U.S. engagement with North Korea. Just two days prior, the president issued an order scaling back what he described as “inappropriate and hostile” joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, a decision he explicitly tied to his “good relationship” with Kim. The two leaders held three historic summits during Trump’s first term in office, a period of unprecedented personal diplomacy that included Trump’s famous remark that the two had “fell in love” after exchanging a series of what he called “beautiful letters.” No meeting has taken place since Trump returned to the White House for his second term, though in recent weeks the president has dropped increasing hints that behind-the-scenes communications have resumed. When pressed Wednesday, however, he declined to explicitly confirm whether letter exchanges between the two leaders are currently ongoing.
The report of renewed communication drew a measured response from Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of Kim Jong Un and one of the North Korean regime’s most prominent senior officials. Speaking Wednesday, she stated that she was “unaware” of any reported correspondence between her brother and President Trump, but nonetheless noted that diplomatic ties between the two leaders remain “excellent,” leaving the door open for future high-level engagement.