In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, center, and foreign leaders including Russia President Vladimir Putin, center left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center right, walk to Tiananmen Rostrum ahead of a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2025.XINHUA/YONHAP
John Everad
The author is a former British ambassador to North Korea.
On Oct. 19, U.S. President Donald Trump rowed back from his previous upbeat remarks about the prospects for a summit with General Secretary Kim Jong-un during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) regional forum in Shenzhen on Nov. 18 to 19. His new-found caution is well founded. There are fewer reasons why the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) — North Korea's official name — would want this summit than reasons why it would not. US officials have privately confirmed that the DPRK has not responded to inquiries about a meeting.
It is painful to remember the euphoria that greeted the Joint Statement of the Six Party Talks on Sept. 19, 2005. With hindsight, this was the last serious and practical agreement with the DPRK that might have led to its becoming something like a normal member of the international community. The 2012 Leap Day Deal was dead almost on delivery, while President Trump’s summits with General Secretary Kim never had the depth or detail of the 2005 agreement.
In exchange for denuclearization, the 2005 Joint Statement offered the DPRK security assurances, economic and energy assistance and normalisation of relations with the United States. But that was 21 years ago. The DPRK probably no longer needs or wants what was offered then. Its security is now underpinned by a formal alliance with Russia, and its military is better equipped and has recent battle experience from fighting Ukraine. Trade with Russia has helped lift its economy from the desperate state of 2005, while Chinese and Russian oil deliveries seem to meet its energy needs. Even without formal relations, Pyongyang knows it can speak to Washington, including at the highest level, whenever it chooses. Nor is there any indication that the DPRK wants normalization with the United States. Having prevented most western European embassies in Pyongyang from reopening after the pandemic, it is unlikely to welcome a U.S. Embassy.
President Trump has two other things to offer that were not discussed in 2005. One is an undertaking to cease demanding the complete verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the DPRK, effectively allowing it to join India and Pakistan among states whose nuclear weapons are unofficially tolerated. But when Kim Yo-jong — Kim Jong-un's sister — said on April 8, 2025, “We don't care about anyone's denial and recognition,” she was probably telling the truth. As time passes, the DPRK is likely to achieve silent tolerance of its nuclear program anyway. Even President Trump remarked on Oct. 24 2025, “I think they are sort of a nuclear power.”
The other offer would be massive economic investment. But given the DPRK’s determination to prevent contacts between its citizens and foreigners, it is unlikely to welcome projects that would inevitably bring many such contacts.
So the United States has few cards to play, and the attractions of a summit to General Secretary Kim are limited. Agreeing to one would also be hazardous. After pursuing dialogue with President Trump against his officials’ advice, Kim was humiliated at the Hanoi meeting in Vietnam. Another summit that failed to deliver for the DPRK would put his judgement dangerously in question among Pyongyang’s elite.
More important are the international risks. In 2018 Kim consulted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing after the Singapore summit, but held no comparable meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The balance of relationships has since changed substantially. In 2005 the DPRK was isolated, but today it is courted by both Russia and China. Its new importance to them is reflected in new border bridges, including the bridge across the Yalu River to China, and in Kim’s recent visit to Dandong. These relationships strengthen the DPRK’s economy and security, but the need to preserve them as a first priority of foreign policy also constrains its decisions. It cannot risk either country reducing supplies of goods, money or technology. A summit with President Trump would therefore have to be weighed against the reactions of these two vital friends.
Chinese officials say China supports another Trump-Kim summit in principle, not least because it would add luster to APEC and cast China, as host, as matchmaker. But China would ensure that a summit did not damage its interests. It might accept major unilateral U.S. concessions to the DPRK, but would resist heavy U.S. investment that challenged China's economic position there. It would probably also oppose diplomatic normalization: Why allow a U.S. Embassy to compete for influence in Pyongyang? A summit on such terms is difficult to imagine.
Russia would be even more hostile. Its objections would be strategic as well as personal: Moscow already has to share influence in Pyongyang with Beijing and has no wish to accommodate Washington too. President Putin believes President Trump reneged on an understanding reached in Alaska on Aug. 15 concerning Ukraine’s Donbas region, and feels deeply betrayed. Any DPRK-U.S. rapprochement would threaten Russia’s strong position in the DPRK and might disrupt the DPRK’s vital support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. Putin also personally distrusts Trump and would be reluctant to give him the satisfaction of a summit with Kim. Kim knows that such a meeting would anger Putin, and he cannot afford that.
Sadly, therefore, the prospects for a summit between President Trump and General Secretary Kim are scant. And 2005 seems such a long time ago.
