President Donald Trump said Monday that he wanted to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year and was open to further trade talks with South Korea even as he lobbed new criticisms at the visiting Asian ally.
“I’d like to meet him this year,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he welcomed South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae-myung, to the White House for the first time. “I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future.”
Despite clinching a trade deal in July that spared South Korean exports harsher U.S. tariffs, the two sides continue to wrangle over nuclear energy, military spending, and details of a deal that included $350 billion in promised South Korean investments in the United States.
After meeting with Trump, Lee attended a business forum with senior U.S. officials and CEOs of South Korean and U.S. companies.
To coincide with the visit, South Korea’s flag carrier, Korean Air, announced an order for 103 Boeing aircraft, the largest order in the airline’s history.
North Korea did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks. Its state media said later that U.S.-South Korea joint military drills proved Washington’s intention to “occupy” the Korean Peninsula and target countries in the region.
Since Trump’s January inauguration, Kim has ignored Trump’s repeated calls to revive the direct diplomacy he pursued during his 2017-21 term in office, which produced no deal to halt North Korea’s nuclear program.
In the Oval Office, Lee avoided the theatrical confrontations that dominated a February visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a May visit from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Lee talked golf and lavished praise on the Republican president’s interior decorating and peacemaking, telling reporters earlier that he had read the president’s 1987 memoir, “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” to prepare.
“I hope you can bring peace to the Korean Peninsula, the only divided nation in the world, so that you can meet with Kim Jong Un, build a Trump World (real-estate complex) in North Korea so that I can play golf there, and so that you can truly play a role as a world-historical peacemaker,” Lee told Trump, speaking in Korean.
Lee’s office said he and Trump discussed shipbuilding and the assassination attempts against both men. Lee also invited Trump to attend the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping in October and suggested the American president try to meet with Kim during the trip, Lee’s office added.
“Despite the massive sanctions imposed to deter North Korea, the result has been the continuous development of nuclear weapons and missiles,” Lee said during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington after the summit.
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He said North Korea now has the capacity to build 10 to 20 nuclear warheads per year, and only needs to perfect a reentry vehicle to carry those warheads on its largest ballistic missiles that can reach the U.S.
South Korea’s economy relies heavily on the U.S., with Washington underwriting its security with troops and nuclear deterrence. Trump has called Seoul a “money machine” that takes advantage of American military protection.
“I think we have a deal done” on trade, Trump told reporters. “They had some problems with it, but we stuck to our guns.” He did not elaborate, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump said while sitting with Lee that he would raise “intel” he had received about South Korean investigations that he said targeted churches and a military base. The White House did not respond to a request for more information.
This month, Seoul police raided Sarang Jeil Church, headed by an evangelical preacher who led protests backing Lee’s ousted predecessor Yoon Suk-yeol.
In July, prosecutors investigating Yoon’s declaration of martial law served a search warrant on the Korean part of a military base jointly operated with the U.S. Officials have said U.S. troops and materials were not subject to the search.
South Korea’s far-right movement, especially evangelical Christians and Yoon supporters, sees him as a victim of communist persecution.
Trump was expected to pressure Lee to commit to more defense spending, including toward upkeep of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea.
Asked if he would reduce those numbers to give the U.S. more regional flexibility, Trump said, “I don’t want to say that now,” but that maybe Seoul should give the U.S. ownership of the “land where we have the big fort,” an apparent reference to Camp Humphreys, a U.S. Army garrison in South Korea.
Before the meeting, Lee told reporters it would be difficult for Seoul to accept U.S. demands to adopt such “flexibility” — a reference to using U.S. forces for a wider range of operations, including China-related threats.
