North Korea dismisses Trump's claims of friendship with leader Kim Jong Un

By Thomas Maresca


North Korean state media said Tuesday that the relationship between former U.S. President Donald Trump and leader Kim Jong Un led to no "substantial positive change." Trump and Kim met briefly in June 2019 at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. File White House Photo by Shealah Craighead/UPI | License Photo



SEOUL, July 23 (UPI) -- North Korean state media commented on the U.S. presidential race on Tuesday, dismissing the likelihood of dialogue no matter which candidate wins and saying that former President Donald Trump's high-profile relationship with leader Kim Jong Un did not bring about "substantial positive change."

"The [U.S.] political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this," an unsigned column in state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

The column referenced comments Trump made about his relationship with Kim in his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last week, saying they represented a "lingering desire" for improved U.S.-North Korean relations.

"I got along very well [with] Kim Jong Un," Trump said during his remarks Friday. "It's nice to get along with someone who has a lot of nuclear weapons or otherwise."

"We stopped the missile launches from North Korea," Trump added. "Now, North Korea is acting up again. But when we get back, I get along with him. He'd like to see me back too. I think he misses me, if you want to know the truth."

Trump and Kim held summits in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi, Vietnam in 2019 but failed to secure a nuclear deal. Trump later boasted that Kim wrote him "beautiful letters" and said the two "fell in love."

"It is true that Trump, when he was president, tried to reflect the special personal relations between the heads of states in the relations between states, but he did not bring about any substantial positive change," the KCNA commentary said.

Trump's former national security adviser H.R. McMaster said Monday that he believed Kim would try to resurrect their "bromance" if the former president were to return to the White House.

"I think if Donald Trump is elected president, what you're going to see right away is Kim Jong Un trying to rekindle their bromance," McMaster said during an online event hosted by the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

McMaster speculated North Korea would offer to limit its nuclear program and end its long-range ballistic missile program in exchange for U.S. forces leaving the Korean Peninsula.

"He's going to hope to get something like an Iran nuclear deal -- a terrible deal for the United States," McMaster said. "He won't get that from a Trump administration, but he's posturing himself for that."

Under the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, Washington has repeatedly offered to meet with North Korea without preconditions, but Pyongyang has shown no interest in returning to the negotiating table as it continues to develop its nuclear and missile programs.

The KCNA column said that such "sinister" offers of dialogue from the United States are prompted by an "ulterior intention" to weaken the North Korean regime.

"Through the decades-long relations with the U.S., the DPRK has keenly and fully felt what the dialogue brought to it and what it lost," the column said. "The fair international community has already come to a conclusion that the U.S. is a perfidious country which does not fulfill its promises."

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

"The U.S. had better make a proper choice in the matter of how to deal with the DPRK in the future, while sincerely agonizing the gains and losses in the DPRK-U.S. confrontation," the column added.