North Korea, explained.
Whether any dialogue can result in a meaningful agreement is another matter (Manuel Elías/UN Photo)
If Donald Trump wants to revive his showpiece negotiation, he will find the calculation has since changed.
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This time, Russia stands in the way of any US‑North Korea dealThis time, Russia stands in the way of any US‑North Korea deal
With Donald Trump about to return to the White House, his foreign policy team is taking shape.
Trump appointed Alex Wong, who was involved in working-level talks with North Korea during Trump’s first term, to be the principal deputy national security adviser. Elbridge Colby, who advocated for an arms control deal with North Korea, has been named as undersecretary of defence. Trump also designated former US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell to be envoy for special missions, bringing a strong background working on North Korea and also a supporter of dialogue with Pyongyang.
Trump’s team is reportedly discussing resuming dialogue with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un. On the campaign trail, Trump boasted about his personal relationship with Kim as the most important factor behind North Korea’s missile moratorium.
If North Korea is excited by the prospect, it hasn’t shown it. Not only did it not report on Trump’s electoral victory, it emphasised many times that it did not care who won the US presidency. In July, Korean Central News Agency explicitly said that “the foreign policy of a state and personal feelings must be strictly distinguished”. At its year-end meeting, North Korea adopted the “most hardline” policy towards the United States and made its message clear by testing two intermediate-range ballistic missiles in January.
Russia’s rewards far outweigh what the United States can offer, which at most amounts to a recognition of North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state with limited sanctions relief.
But Pyongyang is also employing intentional ambiguity. While ignoring even the prospect of Trump proposing dialogue, similarly, it has not published the full text of the revised constitution, in which it defined the South as a “hostile state”. Wait-and-see appears to be the approach, especially amid South Korea’s unfolding political crisis after the abortive martial law declaration last month. A hypothetical electoral victory of a liberal South Korean president in 2025, which is not a far-fetched scenario, coupled with Trump’s push for dialogue, may revive the momentum seen during the term of South Korean liberal President Moon Jae-in.
But whether any dialogue can result in a deal is another matter. Although the three Trump-Kim summits in 2018 and 2019 did not achieve a concrete outcome, the two leaders walked away with a better expectation of what the other party expects from a deal, especially the scope of US sanctions relief in exchange for a freeze in North Korea’s nuclear program. The main impediment to a deal this time lies not in North Korea’s nuclear program per se but in its alliance with Russia.
When the US-North Korea dialogue began in 2018, North Korea did not receive much benefit from Russia. Moscow enforced international sanctions on Pyongyang for its nuclear tests and deported North Korean workers. A deal with the United States to relieve international sanctions was hugely beneficial to North Korea back then.
North Korea’s calculation has now changed. In March 2024, Russia vetoed the United Nations sanctions regime against North Korea. Russia has compensated North Korean troop participation in the Russia-Ukraine war handsomely by providing it with technology and cash to revive the domestic defence industry and rural development. Russia has also affirmed that it will aid North Korea if the latter was attacked.
Russia’s rewards far outweigh what the United States can offer, which at most amounts to a recognition of North Korea as a nuclear-weapon state with limited sanctions relief.
The United States will also encounter difficulty striking a deal with North Korea when North Korean troops are fighting against Ukraine. A US deal with North Korea will need to cover those troops to alleviate the threat to America’s European allies. Such a deal would also be contingent on an improvement in US-Russia ties, as Russia may not allow North Korea to renege on its defence commitment and to withdraw from Russia’s western front while it is running out of troops. North Korea will treat Russia’s security concern with utmost seriousness because it will need Moscow’s military assistance if a second Korean war breaks out. A solution to the war in Ukraine therefore has a direct impact on the prospect of a US-North Korea deal.
US-North Korea negotiations over the scope of North Korea’s nuclear program alone have rarely succeeded, but at least a US-North Korea nuclear deal back in 2019 would have easily received Russian and Chinese support. With the Russia factor now more complicated, Trump will have to deal with both Pyongyang and Moscow to get a deal with North Korea since such a deal must not come at the expense of Russia’s interests. North Korea shows no signs of stopping the flow of ammunitions and troops to Russia.
North Korea’s ambiguity towards Trump and South Korea indicates that it has not shunned diplomacy entirely. Still, the United States cannot expect to bring the same offer to the negotiation table and hope for a different outcome.
About the author
Khang Vu
Khang Vu is a visiting scholar in the Political Science Department at Boston College.
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