Saturday, March 29, 2025
Why Kim Jong Un Remembers Trump: North Korean Leader Sets Condition for Talks with U.S.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said he is open to future talks with the United States—but only under one condition. According to a report published on Monday, September 22, by North Korea’s state-run media, Kim declared that Pyongyang would not engage in dialogue if Washington continued to demand nuclear disarmament.
“If the U.S. abandons its delusional obsession with denuclearization and truly wishes for peaceful coexistence with us, there is no reason we cannot pursue talks,” Kim told North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament in a wide-ranging speech.
Kim made clear that North Korea would never give up its nuclear arsenal, which Washington has long insisted is non-negotiable. The dispute has been the central sticking point in U.S.–North Korea relations for decades. Due to its nuclear program, North Korea remains under strict United Nations sanctions. Yet, Kim argued that sanctions have only strengthened his country, giving it resilience and an unyielding spirit “that cannot be crushed by any pressure.”
Interestingly, Kim also recalled his past encounters with former U.S. President Donald Trump, highlighting what he called “good memories.” During Trump’s first term, the two leaders met three times in high-profile summits, breaking decades of hostility between the two nations. However, their most prominent summit in Hanoi in 2019 collapsed over disagreements about how far Pyongyang was willing to go in scaling back its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
“Personally, I still have good memories of the current U.S. President, Trump,” Kim said, signaling that he continues to reflect positively on their unprecedented diplomacy.
Kim’s comments suggest that while he is willing to reopen dialogue with Washington, he sees Trump-era engagement—free of rigid preconditions on denuclearization—as a model, rather than the confrontational stance that has prevailed since.
