Trump Open to Extending Asia Trip to Meet with Kim Jong Un

The Washington Post

13:38 JST, October 28, 2025

TOKYO – President Donald Trump has been clear about one thing in particular on his three-country tour of Asia: He really wants to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

So much so, Trump suggested aboard Air Force One on Monday, that he would extend his nearly week-long trip to make the meeting happen, if Kim agreed.

“It’s our last stop, so it would be pretty easy to do,” Trump told reporters on his way to Japan, when asked whether he would delay his return to Washington on Thursday if it meant meeting with the totalitarian state’s leader.

The president, who met with Kim three times during his first term, said Monday that he would “love” to do so again during this trip but added that U.S. officials “haven’t mentioned it” to North Korean authorities.

“If he’d like to meet, I’m around,” Trump continued. “I’ll be in South Korea, so I could be right over there.”

Asked what the United States could offer Kim during such a meeting, Trump floated the idea of adjusting sanctions against the country – laws that include bans on key exports from North Korea, among other consequences for the nation’s nuclear power program and human rights violations.

“Well, we have sanctions,” Trump said of possible discussion points. “That’s pretty big to start off with. I would say that’s about as big as you get.”

The president’s remarks Monday went further than what he said late last week on his flight to Malaysia: that he was “open” to meeting with the North Korean leader. He joked to reporters that they should “put out the word” for him to get Kim’s attention about a summit. He suggested at the time that it had been difficult to contact Kim because North Koreans “don’t have a lot of telephone service.”

After leaving Japan on Wednesday, Trump will travel to South Korea to hold meetings with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. Trump is set to meet with Xi on Thursday before departing for Washington. Chinese and U.S. negotiators announced Sunday that they had reached a framework for a trade deal to avert additional 100 percent tariffs that Trump had threatened to impose on Chinese imports.

“I would love to see him if he wants to, if he even gets his message,” Trump said of Kim aboard Air Force One on Monday. “We haven’t mentioned it, but he knows I’m going over there.”

In the days before the trip, senior White House officials downplayed the likelihood of a meeting with Kim, and one told The Washington Post that it was “not happening.” But the president has continued to muse about the prospect of a meeting this week, recalling how a visit was hastily arranged for the two leaders during Trump’s 2019 visit to South Korea.

On that trip, while still in Japan, Trump tweeted about his desire to meet Kim “at the Border/DMZ,” referring to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, “just to shake his hand and say Hello(?)!”

A line of communication then opened between U.S. and North Korean officials, who organized a meeting in just over a day in a village inside the demilitarized zone. Trump briefly stepped over the border into North Korea, becoming the first U.S. president to do so. The leaders have not seen each other since, but each has continued to speak warmly about the other.

“I got along great with Kim Jong Un,” Trump told reporters Monday.

During a speech last month, Kim said he still has “a good memory of President Trump,” North Korean state media reported. But Kim said he would meet with Trump only “if the U.S. drops its hollow obsession with denuclearization.”

North Korea has refused to halt its nuclear weapons program, and talks between Trump and Kim in 2018 and 2019 did not result in an agreement by Kim to do so. Throughout those talks, Kim pushed Trump to lift sanctions on his country in exchange for a partial dismantling of the nuclear program.

But more recently, Kim has said he would not negotiate over North Korea’s nuclear program, and the country has continued to produce nuclear fuel, raising doubts about the possibility of the U.S. lifting sanctions. Kim, meanwhile, has strengthened ties with China and Russia – both of which have provided military and political support to North Korea.

During his wide-ranging briefing aboard Air Force One on Monday, Trump and top Cabinet officials also addressed the government shutdown, the fragile ceasefire in the Middle East and the search for a new chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The president blamed Democrats for disruptions to air traffic control induced by the shutdown, and he suggested that he could name a new Federal Reserve chair before the end of the year.

During the more than 30-minute briefing, Trump also said that he had spoken on recent occasions with billionaire Elon Musk, his onetime “first buddy” who had an explosive falling out with the president over the summer. The two were seen talking at a memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and Trump said they have talked “on and off” since the event in September.

Trump also declined to rule out seeking a third term as president and said he “would love to do it,” though he dismissed the idea of doing so by running on a ticket as vice president – a strategy some allies and critics alike have suggested Trump could use to skirt the constitution’s two-term limit. Trump said running to be vice president and then stepping into the role of president would be “too cute” and “the people wouldn’t like it.”

Asked if he was ruling out seeking a third term in office, Trump remained coy – as he has on other occasions this year when asked the question.

“Am I ruling it out?” he replied. “You’ll have to tell me.”

After landing, Trump ended his first night in Tokyo with a brief visit from Naruhito, the emperor of Japan.