Kim May Introduce Daughter at Next Trump-Kim Summit — SkimNews
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- Kim Jong Un may bring his daughter Kim Ju Ae, believed to be around 13, to a potential fourth summit with Trump later this year, using it to showcase his likely heir to the world
- Kim Ju Ae made her first publicly confirmed trip abroad in September 2025, accompanying her father to Beijing where he met Xi Jinping and Putin at China's military parade, though she remained at the North Korean Embassy during the main events
- Donald Trump said in August he expected to meet Kim later this year, and South Korean intelligence assessed that a U.S.-North Korea summit could happen at any time
- Pyongyang declared denuclearization an "irreversibly finalized matter" in June, while the Trump administration continues to publicly support complete denuclearization—though Trump has repeatedly called North Korea a "nuclear power"
- Ju Ae is the first child of a North Korean leader to openly accompany a parent on an official foreign visit since Kim Jong Il traveled with Kim Il Sung to Indonesia in 1965
- Trump's three prior meetings with Kim—Singapore 2018, Hanoi 2019, and the inter-Korean border that same year—produced no agreements, but each gave Kim symbolic legitimacy as an apparent equal of a sitting U.S. president
Why it matters: Even without a denuclearization deal, a fourth summit could normalize two things Kim wants: North Korea's status as a nuclear-armed state and his daughter's claim as fourth-generation heir. The gap between Trump's own "nuclear power" language and his administration's formal denuclearization stance gives Pyongyang room to extract symbolic concessions—visibility for Ju Ae, recognition of its arsenal—without giving up weapons.
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