President Donald Trump said Monday he expects to meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “at some point,” reviving talk of diplomacy with Pyongyang as he prepared to host South Korea’s new president at the White House.
“I have very good relationships with Kim Jong Un, North Korea,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “In fact, someday I’ll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me. We had two meetings, we had two summits. We got along great. I know him better than you do. I know him better than anybody, almost other than his sister.”
Trump and Kim met twice during his first term, including a 2019 sit-down in the heavily militarized Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, that briefly saw Trump cross into North Korea — the first time a U.S. president stepped onto its soil.
The former president’s comments came minutes before he welcomed South Korean President Lee Jae Myung for their first face-to-face meeting. Lee, a liberal who rose from child laborer to head of the Democratic Party, was elected in June after the dramatic ouster of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Hours earlier, Trump questioned South Korea’s stability in a post on his Truth Social platform. “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there,” he wrote.
Speaking later in the Oval Office, Trump elaborated, saying he had “heard bad things” about “very vicious raids on churches by the new government in South Korea,” and claimed investigators had entered a U.S. military base to gather information. “They probably shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’ll be finding out.”
South Korean authorities have conducted several high-profile raids in recent weeks. Police searched the church of a conservative pastor linked to a pro-Yoon protest that turned violent in January, according to Yonhap News Agency. Prosecutors investigating corruption allegations against former first lady Kim Keon Hee also raided facilities tied to the Unification Church. Separately, investigators visited parts of Osan Air Base as part of a probe into Yoon’s brief imposition of martial law, though Seoul has said the raid was limited to areas under South Korean jurisdiction.
Trump’s remarks threatened to overshadow his talks with Lee, which had been expected to focus on trade and defense. The two sides signed a new trade deal in July setting tariffs on South Korean goods at 15 percent after Trump threatened to impose rates as high as 25 percent. Automobiles, Seoul’s top export to the U.S., were central to the negotiations.
Lee’s office has said the agenda includes cooperation in semiconductors, batteries and shipbuilding, as well as discussions on U.S. troop deployments in South Korea. Seoul has long been concerned that Washington could demand higher payments for the American military presence.
Before arriving in Washington, Lee made a symbolic visit to Tokyo — the first time a South Korean president chose Japan for his inaugural bilateral trip since the two nations normalized ties in 1965. He met Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in what analysts saw as a bid to strengthen leverage ahead of talks with Trump.
Lee, who narrowly lost to Yoon in 2022, played a leading role in parliament’s effort to overturn Yoon’s martial law decree and impeach him earlier this year. The Constitutional Court formally dismissed Yoon in April.
The new president also survived an assassination attempt in January 2024, when he was stabbed in the neck by a man who initially sought his autograph.
Lee arrived in the U.S. on Sunday, headlined a dinner with some 200 Korean Americans in Washington that night and will depart Tuesday.
