Trump Confirms Plans to Meet Kim Jong Un Later This Year

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he intends to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before the end of the year, signaling a renewed push for high-level personal diplomacy with Pyongyang after years of limited engagement.

Speaking to reporters during a tour of a new helipad under construction on the White House South Lawn, Trump responded affirmatively when asked whether he expected to meet Kim in 2026. “Yeah, I will,” he said. He described their relationship in familiar terms, stating, “I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he’s going to be fine as long as we have a smart president.” Trump added that getting along with the North Korean leader is “a good thing, not a bad thing,” and noted that Kim possesses “57 very powerful nuclear weapons,” remarking that such an arsenal should never have been permitted.

The comments followed reports that Trump has been pressing aides to arrange an in-person meeting as early as this autumn. One potential window discussed privately involves Trump’s planned travel to Asia around the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit scheduled for mid-November in Shenzhen, China. No formal planning has begun, and neither side has announced a specific date or location. Trump declined to confirm whether the two leaders have resumed exchanging letters, a practice that characterized their earlier contacts.

The outreach comes amid a series of signals intended to lower tensions with North Korea. Days earlier, Trump ordered a substantial reduction in U.S. participation in the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises with South Korea, describing the drills as costly and as sending a “totally inappropriate and hostile” message to a country that, in his view, has remained unthreatening and respectful during his presidency. North Korea has continued to advance its nuclear and missile programs since the previous summits. Independent assessments, including those from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, place the number of assembled warheads in a similar range to the figure Trump cited.

Trump and Kim met three times during the president’s first term: in Singapore in 2018, in Hanoi in 2019, and briefly at the demilitarized zone later that year, when Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to step into North Korean territory. Those encounters produced no lasting denuclearization agreement, and relations deteriorated in subsequent years. Trump’s latest statements reflect an effort to revive the personal channel that once defined U.S.-North Korea engagement, even as broader questions about verification, sanctions relief, and the complete dismantlement of Pyongyang’s nuclear program remain unresolved. Officials on both sides have yet to outline concrete next steps beyond the president’s public confirmation that a meeting is planned for this year.