Trump Declares Ongoing “Very Good” Relationship with Kim Jong‑un, Hints at APEC Summit Talks

A timeline of the overtures

The first public sign that Trump’s administration was willing to shift from the heat‑of‑the‑press rhetoric to a behind‑closed‑doors dialogue arrived on May 24, 2018, when the president announced the cancellation of a planned summit with Kim Jong‑un in Singapore on June 12. The next day, May 25, 2018, Trump took to the podium in the White House Rose Garden and declared that his relationship with the North Korean ruler was “very good” and that he still hoped to meet the dictator in person. The cancellation, while framed as a tactical move, hinted that Trump was already banking on a personal connection to pave the way for future negotiations.

The first actual face‑to‑face encounter materialised on February 27, 2019, in Hanoi, Vietnam. In a joint press conference, Trump told reporters that he and Kim “have a very good relationship” and that a second meeting would be “very successful.” A few months later, on July 1, 2019, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to step onto North Korean soil, crossing the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at Panmunjeom to meet Kim in a moment that was as symbolic as it was theatrical. The two leaders signed an agreement to resume talks on denuclearisation, a pledge that, in retrospect, has seen little substantive progress.

Now, in the early hours of August 26, 2025, the statements have resurfaced with unsettling vigor. According to a report by Xinhua News Agency, Trump, standing in the Oval Office, reiterated that his rapport with Kim is “very good” and expressed a desire to meet the North Korean leader later in the year. While no official schedule has emerged, aides hinted that the former president hopes to seize the upcoming APEC summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, slated for October, as a chance to sit down with Kim again. In the same breath, Trump has suggested that “he and I have a very good relationship,” underscoring the persistence of a personal narrative that he believes can translate into diplomatic leverage.

Personal diplomacy versus institutional caution

Trump’s insistence on the warmth of his personal connection with Kim stands in sharp contrast to the conventional U.S. diplomatic playbook, which favours multilateral coordination and a measured, often adversarial, stance toward Pyongyang. By foregrounding a private relationship, Trump seeks to bypass the intricate network of inter‑agency deliberations that typically undergird policy decisions on nuclear non‑proliferation. The former president has repeatedly framed any advancement—or lack thereof—on the denuclearisation question as a direct result of his personal rapport, a claim that raises both eyebrows and concerns among traditional policymakers.

Anonymous senior officials within the State Department and the National Security Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, have voiced growing scepticism about Kim’s willingness to translate diplomatic niceties into concrete steps toward a nuclear‑free peninsula. Their doubts are rooted in a sobering record: despite three high‑profile meetings—including the 2019 DMZ summit—there has been no verifiable dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, and recent intelligence reports suggest the regime continues to expand its capabilities.

Allied governments in the region, particularly South Korea and Japan, have reacted with a mixture of wariness and unease. Both have warned that an American monologue centred on personal rapport could undermine a coordinated approach to Pyongyang, potentially emboldening North Korea to extract concessionary offers without delivering reciprocal denuclearisation measures. The notion that the United States might unilaterally negotiate with Kim, detached from the strategic calculus of its regional partners, has resurfaced in diplomatic circles as a “single‑issue risk” that could strain long‑standing security arrangements.

Implications beyond the headline

At the popular level, the headline “Trump says his relationship with Kim Jong‑un is very good” has resonated more as a curiosity than a rallying cry. Social‑media listening tools have struggled to capture a coherent public sentiment; academic papers and news analyses dominate the discourse, dissecting Trump’s broader diplomatic style rather than measuring popular approval or criticism of this specific remark. Nonetheless, the repetition of the “very good relationship” line has contributed to a growing perception that the United States can, in principle, rely on charismatic, leader‑to‑leader engagement to achieve strategic ends—a belief that the broader public debate on foreign policy stability continues to contest.

For Kim Jong‑un, the calculus is straightforward. A visible endorsement from a former U.S. president bolsters his regime’s legitimacy on the world stage, offering a diplomatic lever that can be used to press for relief from sanctions or to demand the easing of international isolation. Whether the North Korean leadership interprets Trump’s overtures as genuine goodwill or as a transactional opening for leverage remains opaque.

In sum, Donald Trump’s sustained claim that he enjoys an “extremely good relationship” with Kim Jong‑un reflects an intrinsic tension within contemporary diplomacy: the allure of personal rapport as a shortcut to statecraft, versus the measured, collective approach that seeks to bind agreements to verifiable, enforceable outcomes. While the narrative of friendship may soften the tone of public exchanges and provide the former president with a platform to advocate for future face‑to‑face talks—potentially even at next year’s APEC summit—the substantive challenge of coaxing a hermit state toward irreversible denuclearisation remains unresolved. The “very good relationship” rhetoric, repeated over a span of seven years, underscores both the durability of Trump’s unconventional diplomatic style and the stubborn reality that underlying security concerns on the Korean Peninsula still demand a more systematic, multilateral path forward.