Trump could ask Xi for suggestions on engagement with North at upcoming summit: Campbell

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping hold a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Busan on Oct. 30, 2025. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

 

U.S. President Donald Trump could ask for Chinese President Xi Jinping’s suggestions for engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their upcoming summit in Beijing, a former senior U.S. diplomat said on Thursday, as he has repeatedly expressed his desire for dialogue with Pyongyang.

 

Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell made the remarks during a press meeting amid questions regarding whether the agenda for the Trump-Xi meeting, set to begin on Thursday, would include efforts to address North Korean issues and whether Trump would seek to rekindle his personal diplomacy with Kim during his trip to China.

 


 

“I believe that one of the topics that will likely be on the table is […] I think President Trump will ask President Xi about suggestions about engagement with Kim Jong-un,” Campbell said, referring to Xi’s suggestions that would help the United States reach out to the North and facilitate the resumption of diplomacy between the two countries.

 

However, Campbell expressed skepticism over whether Pyongyang would be interested in dialogue with Washington, as he pointed out shifts in the North’s diplomatic and military standing that have transpired since Trump last met Kim at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom in June 2019.

 

“Kim Jong-un is now much more closely associated with Russia and China, is deeply involved in the conflict in Ukraine and has doubled down on both nuclear and missile developments,” he said. “I’m not sure they’re as interested in diplomacy with the United States as they were in the past.”

 

But he noted that the North Korean regime is a “deeply unpredictable actor,” apparently raising the possibility that it could pivot toward engagement with Washington at some point.

 

“So let’s see what the future holds,” he said.

 

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell speaks during a roundtable with reporters at the Foreign Press Center in Washington on Dec. 19, 2024. [YONHAP]

President Donald Trump, left, meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the North Korean side of the border at the village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, June 30, 2019. [AP/YONHAP]

 

Campbell pointed out Trump’s “persistent” outreach to Pyongyang, which has fanned speculation that Trump’s personal diplomacy with Kim could resume if opportunities arise.

 

“One of the things that surprised me during the [presidential] transition — and we’ve seen subsequently — is the president is actually quite determined and persistent about wanting to diplomatically reach out to North Korea, and he’s constantly looking for ways to get his messages through to Kim Jong-un,” Campbell said.

 

The message back from North Koreans has generally been that Pyongyang is not interested in engaging in dialogue unless their terms — U.S. acceptance of the North as a nuclear power — are accepted, he noted.

 

“I don’t believe, in these circumstances, that the president or his advisers, given all the other things that they have got going, are really interested in that kind of approach right now,” he said.

 

A White House official told Yonhap News Agency that a meeting between Trump and Kim during Trump’s trip to Asia next week is “currently not” on the schedule.

 

Trump held three in-person meetings with Kim during his first term: the first in Singapore in June 2018, the second in Hanoi in February 2019 and the last one at Panmunjom.

Yonhap