'Keep making concessions, Donald': US experts say Kim has little reason to meet Trump

A US Korea expert has warned that even if Donald Trump pursues a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the chances of it happening are slim — and that South Korea and Japan could find their interests sidelined in the process. Experts at the forum also argued that while North Korea remains the greatest security threat facing the three allies, the bigger "challenge" to the alliance is Trump himself.

Speaking Tuesday at a seminar hosted by the Korea Economic Institute of America in Washington, Bruce Klingner, a senior fellow at the Mansfield Foundation and former CIA analyst, said the prospects for a North Korea-US summit were "slim to none," adding that "even the slim possibility has faded."

He cited North Korea's diminished incentive to engage in negotiations with Washington compared with the past.

"North Korea is receiving between $14 billion and $20 billion from Russia in the form of food, fuel, money and military technology," Klingner said. "Trade with China has recovered to pre-COVID levels, and Pyongyang is earning $1 billion a year through cryptocurrency crime."

He argued that deepening economic ties with Russia and China have left North Korea far less desperate for US sanctions relief than it once was.

He left open the possibility, however, that the calculus could shift depending on how many concessions Trump is willing to offer to secure a meeting.

Klingner pointed to the recent scaling back of the Ulchi Freedom Shield joint exercise and the cancellation of the US-South Korea Marine Corps exercise known as the Ssangyong drill as the first round of concessions, predicting that "we will continue to see exercises canceled going forward."

He added that from North Korea's perspective, the message to Trump would be: "That's not enough, Donald. Keep raising the stakes and offering more concessions. Then we might consider meeting with you."

The deeper concern, he said, is that South Korean and Japanese interests may not be adequately reflected as Washington pursues engagement with Pyongyang.

"Trump will want to meet with North Korea and won't care what Japan's or South Korea's interests are," Klingner said.

He went further, saying "the biggest threat to all three countries is North Korea, but the biggest challenge is the US president." He then criticized Trump — whom he dubbed "Donald Corleone," after the mafia patriarch in "The Godfather" — saying he had witnessed "tariff extortion, threats to withdraw troops and insulting language."

Experts at the forum broadly agreed that the foundation for trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan has weakened since the Camp David summit in 2023.

Jo Eun-a, an assistant professor at William & Mary, said Trump's "obsession with coercive leverage and relative gains against allies" had been "enormously damaging to the trust that underpins the alliance."

Teraoka Ayumi, an assistant professor at Brandeis University, said "American volatility and uncertainty are creating real difficulties for both allies."

Klingner also drew an analogy to marriage. "If you insult your spouse and threaten to punish them if they don't submit, both the spouse and the ally remember that," he said. "Even if things improve, the memory remains."

Experts also raised the possibility that closer alignment among North Korea, China and Russia could eventually revive the case for stronger trilateral cooperation. Jo said that if the relationship among China, North Korea and Russia develops into something closer to a formal alliance, South Korea could find itself more firmly bound to the expanded goals of US-South Korea-Japan trilateral cooperation.