This past weekend, President Donald Trump landed in Malaysia to kick off a tour in Southeast Asia that could either make or break his trade agenda. Ever the showman, Trump inaugurated the week’s events by presiding over a ceremonial signing of a ceasefire agreement between Thailand and Cambodia that he helped broker during the summer. Next, he will jet to Japan for talks with Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female prime minister. Then it’s a session with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung to finalize a U.S.-South Korea trade deal, which is bogged down in the details. Last but not least is a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in which both men are hoping to replace a trade war with a more predictable economic relationship.
The most suspenseful part of the trip, however, is not even on Trump’s official schedule: Will he organize a last-minute sit-down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un?
Right now, the question is a theoretical one. But Trump has fond memories of his summitry with Kim during his first term and hasn’t forgotten the relatively positive press coverage he received becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot on North Korean soil. If anything, Trump has been pondering another diplomatic sojourn with Kim for a while. When South Korea’s president was in Washington in August, Trump told reporters he would like to meet with Kim before the year was out. Flying to the region Friday aboard Air Force One, he reiterated a full openness to a quick meeting. “If (Kim would) like to meet, I’m around,” Trump said a few days later. “I’ll be in South Korea, so I could be right over there.”
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