TAIPEI, Taiwan – U.S. President Donald Trump described North Korea as a “nuclear power”, raising the prospect of a change in the long-held U.S. policy of denying North Korea recognition as a nuclear weapons state and insisting that it abandon its weapons program.
Trump, who was inaugurated for a second term as U.S. president on Monday, has hinted at the possibility of reviving his unprecedented, but ultimately unsuccessful, diplomatic effort that he pursued in his first term to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
North Korea has tested nuclear devices six times since 2006 and says it will never give up its bombs. It insists on being recognized as a nuclear power, a demand both the U.S. and its ally South Korea have dismissed, insisting instead that North Korea agree to its “denuclearization.”
The term “nuclear power” is normally taken to refer to five nuclear-weapon states – U.S., China, Britain, France and Russia – that are officially recognized as possessing nuclear weapons in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, otherwise known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.
Trump, speaking to reporters at the Oval Office after being sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington earlier in the day, referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who he met three times during his first term.
“He is a nuclear power. We got along. I think he’ll be happy to see I’m coming back,” said Trump.
“I was very friendly with him. He liked me. I liked him. We got along very well. They thought that was a tremendous threat,” Trump told reporters without elaborating. It was not clear to whom he was referring to when he said they thought it was a threat.
During a Senate confirmation hearing last week, Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, also called the North a “nuclear power”.
South Korea rejected the term, stressing that North Korea could never be recognized as a nuclear power because to do so would imply abandoning the goal of denuclearization.
In response to Trump’s remarks on Monday, the South Korean defense ministry said it would continue to push for North Korea’s denuclearization.
“Denuclearization of not only the Korean peninsula but also North Korea should be continually pursued as a prerequisite for permanent peace and stability in the world,” Jeon Ha-kyou, the ministry’s spokesperson, said in a regular briefing.
If Trump is intent on reviving diplomatic efforts with North Korea, he might find Kim has less appetite for engaging with the U.S. because of the development of ties with Russia over recent years.
Russia has been forging a closer relationship with North Korea since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine in 2022.
North Korea has sent large volumes of weapons and some 12,000 troops to help Russia with its war, the United States and its allies say. In exchange, analysts and Western officials suspect that North Korea is receiving various Russian support including technological aid for its space program.
‘Tough cookie’
Separately, Trump held a brief talk over a video-link with American troops stationed in South Korea and asked them how the North Korean leader has been doing.
“How are we doing over there? How’s Kim Jong Un doing?” Trump said, while talking to the U.S. Forces Korea personnel based in Camp Humphreys.
In an apparent reference to the North Korean leader, Trump said the troops face “somebody with pretty bad intentions.”
“You would say that, although I developed a pretty good relationship with him, but he’s a tough cookie,” he added.
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Trump raised his engagement with North Korea during his election campaign and in a sign that he might have an eye on reviving the effort, he has picked an aide – William Beau Harrison – who was involved in planning the summit with Kim in Singapore in 2018 and in Vietnam in 2019.
Trump met Kim for a third time on the heavily fortified border between North and South Korea later in 2019 when Trump became the first U.S. president to set foot on North Korean soil.
But the meetings led to no progress on efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.
Last September, North Korea revealed details of its uranium enrichment facility, with Kim calling for more centrifuges to help increase the country’s nuclear arsenal.
A month later Pyongyang said the launch of a new intercontinental ballistic missile gave it the “irreversible” means of delivering nuclear weapons.
Kim had appeared to rule out the prospect of improving relations with the U.S. under a second incoming Trump presidency, saying in November that negotiations with the U.S. had in the past only confirmed its unwavering hostility.
Kim did not refer to Trump by name but said that given U.S. policy towards North Korea, his country’s only option was to achieve the “most powerful military capabilities,” North Korean state media reported.
Edited by Mike Firn.