Trump News: Seoul Sees Slim Chance of Kim Meeting

The trump news out of Seoul on Thursday carried a blunt message for anyone still hoping for a dramatic encounter on the sidelines of next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit: South Korea’s presidential office sees little chance of it happening. An official said there was little possibility of North Korea taking part in any event connected to the gathering in Shenzhen, China, and little possibility of contact between the United States and North Korea on that occasion either.

The assessment lands less than a week before leaders from 21 economies gather in Shenzhen for the APEC leaders’ meeting on November 18 and 19. It effectively closes, for now, a strand of speculation that has run since the summer, when reports first suggested the Trump administration was seeking a new meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his November trip to China. Trump said in August that he expected to meet Kim before the end of the year. Three months later, Seoul’s judgment is that the chances have faded to almost nothing.

What Seoul said — and what it did not rule out

The message came from a senior presidential official speaking to reporters in Seoul on Thursday, on condition of anonymity, alongside National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac. Wi set out President Lee Jae Myung’s plans for a four-day diplomatic trip next week that takes in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Manila before moving on to Shenzhen for APEC.

“We see little possibility of North Korea participating in multilateral events on occasions such as APEC, and little possibility of U.S.-North Korea contact taking place on that occasion,” the official said, according to reports of the briefing. The official acknowledged that nothing could be ruled out entirely, adding that the chances of contact outside the APEC period might be marginally higher than during it. “Overall, I think the possibility is low,” the official added. “But if I had to compare, contact would seem more likely outside the summit period than during it.”

That careful wording matters. Seoul is not saying a meeting is impossible. It is saying that the summit itself, a two-day gathering with tightly choreographed schedules and almost no room for improvisation, is the wrong setting for it, and that North Korea has shown no sign of preparing to attend a multilateral event of this kind.

Trump news: how a possible meeting became a long shot

The idea of a Trump-Kim meeting in China first drew serious attention in the middle of August. The Wall Street Journal reported on August 18 that Trump was seeking talks with Kim, potentially during his November trip to China. The following day, Trump said he expected to meet Kim before the year’s end, a remark that revived memories of the personal diplomacy of his first term, when the two leaders met three times.

Expectations began to fade in October. Asked about a possible meeting in China, Trump said on October 19 that he did not know whether it would happen, a marked cooling from the confidence of August. The trend continued after the midterm elections 2026, in which the Republican Party suffered sweeping losses on November 3. Analysts quoted in South Korean media this week said the 2026 midterms had weakened Trump’s momentum for unconventional diplomatic initiatives such as a meeting with Kim, leaving him with less political room for a high-risk encounter that might produce nothing.

The calendar has also worked against the idea: a meeting between the two leaders needs months of preparation, and every analyst who spoke this week said there was no sign of it taking place. That is the most telling part of Seoul’s assessment: neither side appears to be doing the work a meeting would require.

Why analysts say the groundwork is missing

Security analysts in Seoul were, if anything, blunter than the presidential office. Yang Moo-jin, a former president of the University of North Korean Studies, ruled out a formal summit during the APEC period entirely, while leaving open a faint chance of a brief encounter. “The possibility of a summit around APEC period is zero,” he said. “As for an encounter, chances are not high either, but even a 1 percent possibility is still a possibility, so preparations are necessary.”

Kwak Jin-o, a research professor at Pai Chai University, pointed to the logistics. A trip to China by the North Korean leader would require preparations well in advance, he said, suggesting it is already too late to arrange such a visit.

Moon Chung-in, a professor emeritus at Yonsei University, listed the steps Washington would need to have taken before any summit could happen: appoint a special envoy, establish preliminary contacts, set an agenda and form a task force to support the negotiations. “None of these preparations appear to be underway,” he said. He also pointed to Pyongyang’s lingering distrust after the collapse of the 2019 summit in Hanoi, and to the political risks inside North Korea itself. Moon noted that the current Foreign Minister, Choe Son-hui, would be reluctant to take such a risk without assurances of a successful outcome. “Kim will not come out just for a showcase,” Moon said. “He still has the trauma of Hanoi.”

The shadow of Hanoi

The distrust Moon described has its roots in the most recent chapter of Trump-Kim diplomacy. The two leaders first met in Singapore in June 2018, in the first ever meeting between a sitting American president and a North Korean leader. They met again in Hanoi in February 2019, in a summit that was supposed to produce a deal on denuclearisation in exchange for sanctions relief. Instead the talks broke down, with the two sides unable to agree on how much North Korea would give up and how much the United States would offer in return.

A third meeting followed in June 2019, when Trump stepped across the border into North Korea at the Demilitarized Zone. The images were striking, but the diplomacy stalled, and North Korea went on developing its nuclear weapons and missile programmes while American sanctions stayed in place. That is why Seoul’s analysts speak of trauma rather than mere caution: for Kim, another failed summit would be a political cost he has already paid once.

A trilateral in the wings: Trump, Xi and Putin

If a meeting with Kim is fading, the meeting that may take its place in the headlines is a three-way encounter between Trump, Xi and Putin. The possibility has been discussed in Seoul and Washington for weeks, and the South Korean official’s remark that it cannot be ruled out was the clearest public acknowledgement yet that it is being treated seriously.

The logic is straightforward. Donald Trump is already expected to meet Xi one on one in China. Putin’s attendance remains uncertain, and Seoul is watching closely to see whether he travels to Shenzhen. If he does, a three-way conversation about the peninsula, about nuclear arms control and about the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East would be the natural, if ambitious, next step.

For Seoul, the trilateral matters because it may be the only setting in which Korean Peninsula issues are discussed at all. A three-way meeting would treat the peninsula as one item among several, and possibly a secondary one, but Seoul has said it is in contact with the countries involved to make sure its interests are understood.

Tensions on the border add to the chill

The diplomatic picture is darkened by a recent rise in tensions along the inter-Korean border. Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s powerful sister, announced last month that her country was considering restarting propaganda broadcasts over loudspeakers near the border, ratcheting up pressure on Seoul. The South Korean official said on Thursday that no additional North Korean activity had been detected at the Demilitarized Zone beyond preparations for possible loudspeaker broadcasts, but the fact that the broadcasts are being prepared at all is a sign of how strained the relationship has become.

The border has already produced a serious incident this autumn. South Korea says North Korean mines planted as part of fortification work in the Demilitarized Zone caused a blast in September that seriously wounded several of its soldiers. North Korea denies responsibility and has called the incident a South Korean fabrication.

Lee’s trip, and a peninsula on the sidelines

South Korea’s own president has a busy week ahead. Lee Jae Myung leaves on Monday for a four-day trip that begins with the ASEAN summit in Manila, where he will press the case for closer regional cooperation to withstand energy supply disruptions. He then travels to Shenzhen, arriving on November 18, where his APEC schedule begins with an appearance at the CEO Summit before a welcome dinner hosted by Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan. The leaders’ summit itself follows the next day.

Wi Sung-lac told reporters that Lee would use the gatherings to call for cooperation on ways to respond to energy supply chain shocks originating in the Middle East and on the need to restore the multilateral trading order. It is an agenda shaped by the wars and trade disputes that have dominated the year, and a measure of how far the Korean Peninsula has slipped down the list of priorities.

Analysts expect that pattern to hold through the summit, given competing priorities such as nuclear arms control and the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Yang said he did not see much possibility of the issue being discussed in depth, although he would not rule out a passing reference to peace and stability on the peninsula. Moon said Trump’s likely focus on resolving the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran could overshadow North Korea, further reducing Pyongyang’s willingness to engage.

What happens next: Shenzhen, Xi and the trilateral question

The focus now shifts to Shenzhen and to the days leading up to the leaders’ meeting on November 18 and 19. The questions to watch are concrete. First, whether Putin confirms he will attend, and whether the talk of a trilateral meeting with Trump and Xi hardens into a scheduled encounter. Second, whether the White House says anything new about the prospects for contact with Kim, or lets Seoul’s assessment stand as the last word before the summit.

The assessment delivered in Seoul on Thursday was blunt, detailed and unusually consistent across the presidential office and independent analysts alike. A summit at APEC, in their judgment, is not going to happen. A brief encounter is barely more likely. And the peninsula, for this summit at least, looks set to be discussed by others, in its absence, rather than by the two men whose meeting once seemed the most dramatic possibility of the year.

Source: Reuters, The Korea Times and NK News