Trump wants another meeting with Kim Jong Un, but North Korea just sent him a reality check
North Korea has responded to Donald Trump's hopes of a face-to-face reunion with Kim Jong Un, and it's not exactly the warm welcome the US president might have been banking on.
Trump said on Wednesday that he expects to meet the North Korean leader again before the year is out, days after he scaled back joint military exercises between the US and South Korea, branding them 'hostile' toward Pyongyang.
But according to Reuters, Kim's influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, has already thrown cold water on the idea, insisting that personal chemistry between the two leaders won't be allowed to shape North Korea's military strategy.
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Just hours after her comments, North Korea fired around 10 ballistic missiles off its east coast on Thursday, according to South Korea's military, a move analysts believe was likely a protest against the ongoing US-South Korea drills.
Kim Yo Jong dismissed the reduction in the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise as insufficient, arguing the drills remained aggressive and that Washington's overall stance toward North Korea hadn't changed.
She did, however, describe the relationship between her brother and Trump as 'excellent,' even as she denied the two men had had any direct contact.
Why doesn't North Korea want to meet Trump right now?
North Korea simply has less to gain from sitting down with Trump than it did during his first term, according to Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Stimson Center.
Back then, Kim was chasing sanctions relief. Now, with North Korea's ties to China and Russia stronger than ever, that urgency has largely evaporated.
"North Korea has options and is cultivating relations with states that require no sacrifices but are only win-win propositions," Town said, adding that Kim has little reason to 'rush back into negotiations where there is an expectation for him to concede anything.'
Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, echoed that sentiment, saying that Pyongyang is drawing a clear line between personal rapport and national security.
"Personal ties will never be allowed to compromise national security interests or efforts to strengthen military capabilities," he said.
What conditions has North Korea set for a meeting with Trump?
Analysts say Pyongyang has made clear what it would actually take to bring Kim to the table, and the list is a tall order for Washington.
That reportedly includes major shifts in US policy seen as hostile toward North Korea, plus some form of acknowledgment of its nuclear status, or at least an admission that denuclearisation is no longer the goal.
A US State Department spokesperson maintained that the country 'remains committed to the complete denuclearisation of North Korea', while also stating that the US 'remains open to dialogue with North Korea without preconditions.'
Despite the frosty tone, not everyone believes the door is closed for good.
Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, suggested Kim Yo Jong's statement was less a flat rejection and more an attempt to manage expectations.
"Kim Yo Jong's statement appears less a rejection of dialogue than an effort to manage Trump's perceptions... and lay the groundwork for possible future US-North Korea talks," he said.
One possible venue for a future sit-down could be the APEC summit in Shenzhen later this year, should Trump attend and North Korea prove receptive.
Trump previously held a series of unprecedented summits with Kim in 2018 and 2019, though those talks ultimately collapsed over Washington's insistence that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Topics: North Korea, Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un
Thomas Bamford