Prospects for DPRK-U.S. Negotiations Under Trump 2.0
- Interview
- December 26, 2024
- Andrew YEO
- Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Andrew Yeo, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, outlines the potential opportunities and challenges in U.S.-DPRK relations under a second Trump administration. Yeo notes that Trump might engage more willingly in dialogue with Kim Jong Un, driven by a desire to establish his legacy by resolving the North Korean issue. In this regard, Yeo warns that Trump could agree to a suboptimal deal, possibly preserving North's nuclear status without securing any commitments to denuclearization. Additionally, Yeo observes that North Korea currently has little immediate incentive to return to negotiations with the U.S., and claims that Kim would most likely wait and see how its relationship with Russia develops and decide whether to appeal to the personal rapport with Trump again.
TRANSCRIPT
Chaesung Chun: North Korea is not an urgent issue [for Trump] relative to other issues like Ukraine and the Middle East. But at some point, next year, there might be some focus on North Korea again.
Priorities for South Korea in the Face of Trump 2.0
So, what issues are important right now for [South] Koreans after we welcome a new U.S. president? Can you give us advice and recommendations?
Andrew Yeo: Sure. Well, we can start first with North Korea and Russia.
We have seen news about North Korean troops entering Russia, deployed to the Kursk region, which has led South Korea to consider providing lethal weapons to Ukraine. This battle will be a true test of how far [Russia-North Korea] relationship will go. We’ve already seen it cemented through the defense pact. If the Russians are able to push back the Ukrainians, that would be not only be a tactical military victory for Russia, but also a big PR win for North Korea and Russia and for their alliance. And certainly, Kim would come out on top. It could lead to additional troops being sent to Russia.
So, there’s a lot at stake, I think, in how North Korean troops perform in the Kursk region. If North Korean troops are decimated, then that would look bad for Kim, and I think he would think twice about whether he wants to send another battalion or dispatch more troops.
Potential Summitry Between Trump and Kim Jong Un
Andrew Yeo: But if the Russia-North Korea relationship cools down or if the war ends and North Korea proves less useful to Russia, [then Kim might] possibly consider reaching out to Trump. You know, Kim Jong Un is opportunistic. So, if he thinks that Trump might agree to some type of engagement, we may see a Trump-Kim summit.
Let me just say, though, that under a second Trump administration, the range of opportunities and risks for U.S.-North Korea relations is much wider. The default position is that Republicans, and even Trump, have a fairly hawkish stance on North Korea. When I hear from former Trump officials and other Republicans [in Washington], a lot of it is about how we need to reinforce the sanctions regime. It’s about isolating and containing North Korea by talking about human rights.
And so, the default position for a second Trump administration is to follow that hardline approach to North Korea, given the Republican Party’s general distrust of communist regimes and conservative penchant for pursuing hawkish engagement with North Korea. But this is where we get back to the inconsistencies of the paradox. Despite Republicans being hawkish towards North Korea, Trump himself doesn’t have any ideological blinders. And so, I think he’d be more open to dialogue with North Korea than those Republicans who hold more deep-rooted ideological reservations about engaging with a nuclear-armed, human rights-violating pariah state.
There are three reasons that could suggest that Trump might resume discussions with Kim if Kim sends some kind of signal that he wants to meet. The first is that Trump has developed a personal rapport with Kim, and he still mentions how he gets along very well with him. It’s strange that even though there’s this chill in U.S.-North Korea relations, it doesn’t seem to affect how Trump looks at Kim as an individual leader. And Trump sees himself as a dealmaker so he might be motivated to complete unfinished business and seal a deal with North Korea, even if the agreement doesn’t replicate the demands of the grand bargain that he tried to strike in Hanoi back in 2019. Lastly, there’s Trump’s ego and desire to shape his own legacy that could be a motivating factor to engage Kim Jong Un. He might want to be seen as the first president to resolve the North Korea issue, even if that doesn’t necessarily lead to denuclearization.
But the key question is, we don’t know what’s to be gained by another Trump-Kim summit or what Trump might offer Kim in exchange for North Korea dialing down provocations or suspending its nuclear program because I don’t think Kim Jong Un is going to give up his nuclear program. And that’s where skeptics worry that Trump might strike a bad deal with Kim that enables the regime to preserve its nuclear status without making any real commitments to denuclearization.
Chaesung Chun: That is a very important observation.
Prospects of Transfer of ICBM Technologies Between North Korea and Russia
Chaesung Chun: The last question is, as you said, if North Korea contributes a lot to the recovery of Kursk and the alliance has a successful outcome, do you think Kim Jong Un would feel more confident in asking Putin to transfer ICBM-related technologies such as re-entry, which will be used very significantly in the negotiations with the U.S. to press President Trump?
The worst-case scenario here is that President Trump knows that there is a possibility of North Korea completing ICBM that can attack continental U.S. and alienating South Korea’s interests in restraining North Korea’s tactical nuclear weapons and say that he declares the North Korean nuclear issue is solved, which will decouple the security concerns between the U.S. and South Korea. So, we are worried about it.
Andrew Yeo: I hadn’t seen Kim using that as a bargaining chip, but I do believe that Kim would feel it’s his right to ask Putin for more nuclear and technological assistance, at least more technology assistance on rockets, on missiles, and space technology. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already asked, just because he’s committed soldiers to Russia, and that’s what Russia needed. They wanted more manpower in addition to weapons. So, in some ways, we have to assume the worst. There is no intelligence yet that suggests this has happened, but it’s certainly within the realm of possibility.
But I saw that as a move by Kim to really just reinforce and enhance his own weapons capabilities, not necessarily because he wants to bargain that away with Trump. This is where I’m going back and forth. On one hand, I feel that Kim has no reason to really come back to the negotiating table with the United States. We’ve already heard that he was very upset about the failure in Hanoi, but because he has a very strong relationship with Putin right now, that may grow. And to some degree, I think the Chinese aren’t happy, but they’re still trading with North Korea.
You know, North Korea can still muddle through. [So] he wouldn’t necessarily want to jump into any kind of negotiations with Trump, maybe not in year one, maybe not even year two. But at some point, depending on where the Russia-North Korea relationship goes, Kim may try to reach out to Trump and appeal to that personal rapport again, maybe send another letter or make a remark. Or, if Putin and Trump begin engaging, Putin may encourage the two to also try to reach out. And that’s where we get back.
Implications of Trump 2.0’s Foreign Policy in Global Geopolitics
Andrew Yeo: We were focusing on the Korean Peninsula and North Korea, but we step back again and see this linkage between the Korean Peninsula and global geopolitics. That’s what will make the second Trump administration’s foreign policy different from the first. I think it’s much harder to treat U.S.-North Korea relations as a separate, distinct issue. It’s going to be tied to Russia, and U.S. relations with China, with Russia, North Korea. So, it makes a much more complex situation for the second Trump administration. I hope he has able people to really address these issues.
That was the fear before the elections that Trump would pick people around him that are completely inexperienced that don’t know how to handle these deep, complex problems, or who don’t have the knowledge or experience working on complex global problems. The record has been mixed so far. There’s still a months before we get to inauguration.
Chaesung Chun: Okay, thank you very much. He gave us a lot of enlightening insights and as was always there are so many more questions to ask, but I promise you, we can come back with part two with Dr. Yeo in the future. Thank you very much.
Andrew Yeo: Thank you, Professor Chun.
■ Andrew YEO is a senior fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation Chair at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies. He is also a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
■ Edited by: Jisoo Park, Research Associate
For inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 208) | jspark@eai.or.kr
