To say that President-elect Donald Trump has many plans for his second term would be a gross understatement. He has vowed to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history, secure the U.S.-Mexico border and negotiate a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia.
But for Trump, all of these points could be of secondary importance compared to another issue: solving the nuclear problem in North Korea. Taking Pyongyang's nuclear program off the table is Trump's proverbial white whale, a feat none of his predecessors have achieved. Members of Trump's inner circle told Reuters in late November that the next president was already being discussed Resumption of personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which began during his first term in office.
Talk is one thing, reality is another. If Trump comes into office believing he can easily rekindle his relationship with Kim, he will be prepared for disappointment. Solving the North Korean nuclear problem was difficult five years ago, but today it will be even more difficult.
During his first term, Trump was able to push for a face-to-face meeting with the North Korean leader despite opposition from his national security advisers. That was the right step at the time. Ultimately, the Bush and Obama administrations' attempts at bottom-up negotiations with Pyongyang proved arduous and unsuccessful.
After almost a year of fire-breathing rhetoric and talk about a “bloody noseOpting for a strike that would scare Pyongyang into talks, Trump chose to rely on direct diplomacy. This was partly because his other options – further economic sanctions or military action – ranged from ineffective to disastrous, and partly because then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in was able to convince Trump that a direct channel of communication with Kim could exist be the key to cementing a historic nuclear deal.
Despite three meetings between Trump and Kim, personal diplomacy has achieved nothing in the long term. While Trump managed to conquer North Korea Suspend missile tests for a year – no small achievement given his previous work – The conspicuous peak eventually crashed and burned. Ultimately, Trump and Kim, regardless of their personal chemistry, couldn't agree – Trump, urged by his aggressive advisers, advocated the complete denuclearization of North Korea; Kim, meanwhile, was only willing to demobilize his main plutonium research facility in Yongbyon.
Since then, U.S.-North Korea diplomacy has been dead. The Biden administration's overtures to Pyongyang over the past four years have been repeatedly rebuffed, apparently a result of what the North Korean leadership sees as a lack of seriousness on the part of Washington, as well as U.S. attempts to to cement a trilateral military relationship between the US, South Korea and Japan.
In other words, on January 20, the perennial North Korean nuclear problem will be as thorny as ever. And probably trickier: Kim is now far less desperate for a nuclear deal and an end to US sanctions than he was during Trump's first term.
First, Kim has not forgotten his previous meetings with Trump. He sees the 2018 and 2019 summits as a waste of time at best and a personal humiliation at worst. This shouldn't be a surprise; The North Korean dictator invested significant capital in negotiating an agreement to lift US sanctions and normalize relations between Pyongyang and the US. His requests failed in both cases. Three summits later, US sanctions remained intact and relations between the US and North Korea remained at their usual acrimony.
Kim will be more careful this time. “We have already explored all possible avenues in negotiations with the USA,” he said in Novemberand added that the result was greater US aggression. And in a speech in December he promised to carry out the “toughest…countermeasures” against the US, an expression of his determination to oppose what he sees as a hostile bloc backed by Washington.
The geopolitical environment has also evolved. In 2018 and 2019, North Korea was isolated and the suspension of US sanctions was seen as crucial to its economic growth.
But now Putin's war in Ukraine offers the Kim regime a unique opportunity to diversify its foreign relations away from China by making yourself comfortable in Moscow, not least by sending thousands of North Korean troops to the Ukrainian-Russian front. Russia, which once partnered with the United States in North Korea's denuclearization, is now using North Korea as a means to thwart America's grand ambitions in East Asia.
For Kim, the benefits of his relationship with Russia are equally clear: Putin needs weapons and men; Kim needs cash and military technology. And thanks to Russia's veto in the UN Security Council, additional sanctions remain a pipe dream for the foreseeable future, while the sanctions already adopted are only modestly enforced. As long as relations between Russia and North Korea continue at their current pace, Trump will have a hard time bringing the North Koreans back to the negotiating table.
None of this means that Trump should not make another diplomatic push with North Korea. Despite the criticism he received at the time, Trump's decision to shake things up and go straight to the source was an admirable attempt to solve a problem that has challenged U.S. presidents for more than three decades.
But if Trump wants a second roll of the dice, he needs to keep a healthy dose of skepticism in mind. Given North Korea's continued improvement in nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, any deal the United States signs with the Kim regime will be less impressive than it could have been in 2019 — assuming we reach an agreement at all.
Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign policy commentator for the Spectator.