US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he expects to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year, reviving direct diplomacy between the two leaders despite the lack of progress from their previous summits.
Asked by reporters whether he anticipated meeting Kim this year, Trump replied, “Yeah, I will be.”
Trump declined to say whether he and Kim had resumed exchanging letters, responding, “I can’t tell you that,” while emphasizing his positive relationship with the North Korean leader.
“And you know what?” Trump continued. “The fact that I get along with him, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons.”
Trump’s comments came a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that he was pressing aides to arrange another meeting with Kim, as early as this fall.
The latest development follows Trump’s decision to reduce joint US-South Korean military exercises. Trump cited his “very good relationship” with Kim as one reason for the move.
“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful,” Trump said in a social media post on Sunday.
Trump also indicated that South Korea’s decision not to participate in the US war with Iran was among the factors behind his decision to scale back the exercises.
During his first term, Trump became the first sitting US president to enter North Korea when he crossed into the country at the Demilitarized Zone in 2019. Earlier that year, he met Kim in Vietnam for a nuclear summit that ended without an agreement. Their first summit took place in Singapore in 2018.
Despite the historic meetings, the diplomatic effort failed to produce a concrete agreement addressing North Korea’s nuclear program.
North Korea subsequently adopted an increasingly hostile posture, particularly in 2024, and has conducted dozens of missile tests. Kim has continued to take an adversarial stance toward both Washington and Seoul.
In September 2025, Kim said he had “good memories” of Trump, but also insisted that North Korea would “never lay down our nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile, North Korea’s official news agency reported Wednesday that Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, said she was unaware of any recent communication between her brother and Trump.
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