President Donald Trump is king of the random outburst. One day, he threatens to bomb Oman. The next, he claims the United States is going to annex the Strait of Hormuz. And in others, he teases out an imminent deal to end a six-month war that has gone pretty much nowhere, only to acknowledge, a day later, that talks aren’t taking place at all.
The pattern continued this week. Trump took to Truth Social and declared that annual U.S. military exercises with South Korea will be pared back considerably due to the cost, Seoul’s lackluster support for reopening the Middle East’s prime waterway and that “based on my very good relationship with” Kim Jong Un, the maneuvers sent a “totally inappropriate and hostile signal” to North Korea.
While the news caught many off-guard and appeared to be another one of Trump’s random acts, there may be more to the story. Trump is reportedly eager to meet with the North Korean dictator again and is pushing his advisers to set up a summit, perhaps on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in China later this year. Asked on Wednesday whether he intended to shake hands with Kim again, the president had a ready reply: “Yeah, I will be.”
With everything on Trump’s plate, why is he interested in dipping his toes into the turbulent waters of U.S.-North Korea nuclear diplomacy? Several explanations are at play.
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