President Donald Trump is willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, he told his South Korean counterpart during a meeting on Monday where they discussed peace in the Korean Peninsula and Pyongyang’s nuclear weapon capabilities.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who was elected in June, asked Trump to help establish peace between the two Koreas during his visit to the White House – claiming the situation had been more stable during Trump’s first term in office.
“I think you are the first president to have so much interest in the world’s peace issues and actually made achievements,” Lee said. “So, I hope you would make peace on the Korean Peninsula … and meet with Kim Jong Un.”
He added that he would “actively support” Trump if he wanted to “play the peacemaker,” and that the US president was “the only person who can actually solve” tensions between North and South Korea, who remain technically at war after the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
Lee’s meeting was a major test for South Korea’s new leader at a time when both Seoul’s trade and military relationships with the US are facing pressure from Trump’s “America First” policies.
Lee, who took office in June after his predecessor and conservative political rival was impeached, travelled with a bevy of CEOs and business leaders from some of South Korea’s top firms who announced a slew of investments during the trip.
Korean Air said it intends to purchase 103 aircraft from Boeing, along with engines and a maintenance program from GE Aerospace and CFM International, totaling $50 billion, according to a statement.
Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor Group said it would increase its investment in the United States from a previously planned $21 billion to $26 billion in a Tuesday statement.
In total South Korean businesses are expected to invest a total of $150 billion in the US, Lee announced during a South Korea-US business round table that he attended after the summit.
Golf clubs and cowboy hats
Among the bespoke gifts Lee handed Trump were two cowboy hats embroidered with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan, a tailor-made golf putter, and a “turtle ship” model.
And in a nod to Trump’s love of golf and various golf properties, Lee joked that a Trump Tower should be built in North Korea, “so I can go play golf in Pyongyang as well.”
Trump – whose peacemaking efforts and negotiations with both South and North Korea had been a key part of his tumultuous first term – quickly agreed.
“I will do that, and we’ll have talks. He’d like to meet with me,” Trump said of Kim. “We look forward to meeting with him, and we’ll make relations better. You’ll help that.”
It’s hard to say whether such a meeting might go ahead. North Korean state media claimed that joint military drills between the US and South Korea showed Washington’s intention to “occupy” the Korean peninsula, Reuters reported Tuesday morning local time in South Korea.
U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year and was open to further trade talks with South Korea even as he lobbed new criticisms at the visiting Asian ally.
"I'd like to meet him this year," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he welcomed South Korea's new president, Lee Jae Myung, to the White House for the first time. "I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future."
2025.08.26 CNN/Reuters