Trump ‘clearly’ wants dialogue with Pyongyang: South Korean President — SkimNews
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- Lee Jae Myung said on Sept 18 that Trump 'clearly' wants dialogue with Pyongyang and that Seoul is engaged in 'preliminary coordination efforts,' though a Trump-Kim meeting 'remains difficult... but is not impossible.'
- Trump said in August he plans to meet Kim Jong Un later in 2026, claiming Pyongyang now has 57 'very powerful' nuclear weapons — a figure Seoul's own estimates put higher at 80–120.
- Kim Yo Jong, hours before Lee's remarks, warned of a 'more offensive' response to US military drills and said only 'idiots' think North Korea will give up its nukes; North Korea has yet to clearly respond to Trump's overtures.
- South Korea will not deploy troops or military assets to the Iran war, Lee reiterated three times, limiting its role to protecting its own merchant ships and oil shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz.
- Trump complained in a late-August Fox News interview that allies gave 'very little help' on the Iran conflict, singling out South Korea's 'No, thank you' response despite roughly 28,500 US troops still stationed there.
- Ulchi Freedom Shield drills were held in a shorter form in August after Trump ordered them scaled back, a move that frames the current climate in which Lee is now urging renewed US-Kim engagement.
Why it matters: South Korea is positioning itself as the diplomatic middleman on North Korea while deliberately drawing a line against entanglement in the Iran war — a stance that clashes directly with Trump's public complaints about allied 'free-riding' on the 28,500 US troops still deployed on the peninsula. The harder the Trump-Kim push, the more Seoul risks being squeezed between a transactional US ally and a nuclear-armed North Korea backed by Russia.
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