By Alexander Ward and Robbie Gramer

WASHINGTON-President Trump is pushing aides for a meeting as soon as this fall with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, U.S. officials said, seeking to revive a dramatic diplomatic quest from his first term to convince Kim to abandon his country's nuclear weapons program.

Trump has privately discussed setting up an in-person discussion with Kim during the president's next trip to Asia, the officials said, which could happen in November when world leaders gather at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Shenzhen, China.

While no planning is officially under way, the president's desire for another high-stakes meeting with Kim suggests Trump is eagerly searching for a crowning foreign policy achievement as victory in Iran remains elusive. Most presidents have declined to meet Kim-a dictator estimated to have several dozen nuclear warheads-without preconditions.

While Trump sees another one-on-one meeting as a chance to reopen a dialogue with North Korea, analysts and some U.S. officials said they wouldn't expect much progress. Kim wields a nuclear arsenal that has only grown stronger and more capable of striking the U.S. since Trump and Kim's previous three summits.

Seoul supports engagement between Washington and Pyongyang in the hopes of advancing stability in the region. But the analysts and U.S. officials said a bad deal could ultimately prove harmful to relationships with regional allies like South Korea.

"It appeases yet another despotic dictator based on a misperception that a personal relationship will actually achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives," said Bruce Klingner, a former senior Central Intelligence Agency officer in the Koreas.

A White House official said Trump and Kim would meet at an appropriate time. North Korea's mission to the United Nations didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump tried to meet with Kim during an Asia tour last year, asking reporters on Air Force One to "put out the word" of his hopes for a chat. Pyongyang quietly signaled its openness, U.S. officials said, but the logistics were too tough to organize on short notice. Trump later said such a summit might have overshadowed his planned meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea.

It would have been "maybe disrespectful," Trump told reporters after that 100-minute talk with Xi. "I'd come back, with respect to Kim Jong Un."

On Sunday, Trump posted on social media an order to shrink a joint U.S.-South Korea military drill partly "based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un." The move mirrored similar reductions in Trump's first term designed to lower Washington-Pyongyang tensions in the run-up to three summits between Trump and Kim for nuclear talks.

The next day Trump told reporters his decision stemmed from South Korea not helping the U.S. pry open the shuttered Strait of Hormuz. The president also acknowledged Kim had responded to his overtures, though he provided no further details.

"He's made clear that he wants to meet Kim again," said Victor Cha, an expert on North Korea at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. "These exercises presented him an opportunity to do something concrete to show Kim he is serious about meeting."

In a statement, the South Korean embassy in the U.S. said it hoped that the "friendly relationship" between Trump and Kim would lead to "meaningful dialogue" and advance stability on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday reiterated his call for complete military independence from the U.S.-which hosts a joint command to defend the ally from North Korea-and pushed for a faster acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be in Seoul this week, marking Wang's first official visit to South Korea in five years.

Trump hopes his nuclear diplomacy improves on his first attempt.

In 2018, he signed with Kim the "Singapore Declaration," a roadmap for nuclear talks that critics said was weaker than previous U.S.-North Korea pacts. They met again in Hanoi the following year. Trump walked away from the table after Kim wouldn't agree to dismantle the entirety of his nuclear work, derailing the high-stakes diplomacy. Then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in organized a last-ditch gathering of all three leaders at the Korean demilitarized zone in 2019, but it failed to break the deadlock.

The Biden administration avoided direct engagement with North Korea and strengthened trilateral ties with Japan and South Korea. But that still left space for Kim to expand the country's nuclear and ballistic missile program under a shroud of secrecy. Independent arms control experts estimate North Korea may have developed 60 nuclear warheads and have enough fissile material for up to 90.

Jeffrey Lewis, an expert on Pyongyang's nuclear work at Stanford University's Center for Security and International Cooperation, said that those numbers were first cited nearly a decade ago and now likely far too low.

"North Korea's arsenal is probably in the low hundreds at this point, based on the hundreds of missile launchers it has displayed and the growing amount of plutonium and highly enriched uranium it produces every year," Lewis said.

In March, the U.S. intelligence community assessed in its annual threat report that "North Korea remains committed to expanding its strategic weapons programs, including missiles and nuclear warheads, and to solidifying its deterrent capability."

A month later, a senior Pentagon official testified in Congress that North Korea's nuclear program remained an active threat to the U.S. "North Korea's nuclear forces are increasingly capable of targeting the U.S. Homeland, and its missile forces can strike South Korea and Japan with nuclear or conventional warheads," said Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary of defense who oversees nuclear deterrence issues.

The U.S. doesn't formally recognize North Korea as a nuclear power, though Kim has tried to get Washington to do so.

"Ideationally, that's very important for North Korea," said Cha. "They've always wanted the U.S. to give up on denuclearization and just accept them as a nuclear weapon state."

There are broad concerns from analysts that Kim would have a stronger hand in new meetings.

North Korea has improved ties with China, deepened missile cooperation with Iran and sent thousands of troops to assist Russia's invasion of Ukraine, giving its military more combat experience. Kim recently reaffirmed Pyongyang's growing relationship with Moscow, saying together they "carried forward the history of common struggle for justice and ?precious traditions of friendship."

Kim met with Xi in June, and the Chinese leader plans to attend a September summit with Trump in Washington. U.S. and foreign officials expect Kim to visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the year, most likely after the November U.S. midterm elections when Republican losses could weaken Trump's political position.

Write to Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 18, 2026 19:05 ET (23:05 GMT)