Trump declares his friendship with Kim Jong Un and expects a new meeting between them

Trump told reporters on Tuesday: “It just so happens that Kim Jong Un is a friend of mine. He loves Trump. He doesn’t like a lot of other people, and I may be the only person in the world who likes him, and I love him too, and I get a lot of criticism when I say that. People say he’s a terrible person.”

Trump added: “Yes, Kim has nuclear capabilities, and a fairly large nuclear arsenal, although not as large as ours, but he has nuclear capabilities. Do you know why? Because there are presidents who took office and did not do what I did. This could have been avoided, but there were presidents who were not Trump, and they did not stop it.”

The US President continued: “As long as I am here in the White House, everything will be fine for Kim. Do you know why? Because he respects me.”

Trump said last August that he expected to meet Kim Jong Un later this year.

In the same month, the Pentagon ordered a “significant reduction” in joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, justifying this, among other reasons, by its good relationship with the North Korean leader.

In a related context, Trump said earlier that President Kim responded to his call for a dialogue between the two countries, without revealing the nature of the response or its details.

The Wall Street Journal suggested that the meeting between Trump and Kim will take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit scheduled to be held in China next November.

The newspaper indicated that Trump is seeking to resume the intensive diplomatic efforts that he began during his first presidential term, with the aim of convincing Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.

The two men held a summit in Singapore in 2018, followed by a second summit in Hanoi in 2019, before negotiations faltered due to the dispute over North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs led to the imposition of severe international sanctions on it, including its ballistic missile program.

Last year, Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader's sister and his prominent deputy, said that the personal relationship between her brother and the American president was "not bad," but she warned that if Washington bet on this relationship to end the nuclear program, its efforts would be met with "ridicule."