WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has responded to his request to talk.
Trump's statement came a day after he said in a social media post that he had ordered the Pentagon to significantly reduce joint military drills with South Korea, citing his "very good relationship" with Kim.
Describing the drills as a cost burden for Washington, Trump also wrote Sunday on his Truth Social platform that they send "a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile" to North Korea.
On Monday, Seoul time, the United States and South Korea began Ulchi Freedom Shield, an annual military exercise due to run through Aug. 27, which North Korea has denounced as a rehearsal for an invasion.
A Pentagon official said the Department of Defense is "actively working on executing the commander-in-chief's directive," in reply to a Kyodo News inquiry as to whether the United States would scale back the ongoing exercise.
During his first term, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader when the two shook hands in Singapore in 2018. Trump has repeatedly said he remains open to talks with Kim since beginning his nonconsecutive second term in the White House last year.
When asked on Monday why the North Korean leader had not responded to the U.S. president's olive branch, Trump responded, "He has."
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump added that Kim "has always treated me with great respect."
"We met on numerous occasions, actually, two primary occasions, spoken and spent time. I understand him. He understands me," he said.
During his first presidency, Trump met with Kim three times, with the initial Singapore summit followed by meetings in 2019 in Vietnam and at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom.
Trump's latest conciliatory remarks toward North Korea, which equate to renewed criticism of one of the most important long-standing U.S. allies in Asia, were also tied to his perception that Seoul has failed to support the U.S. war against Iran.
"South Korea has been protected by us for many, many years," Trump stressed while speaking to the press on Monday.
"When I called recently the president of South Korea...I said, 'Would you like to give us a little hand? We don't need help with Iran, but if you'd like, give us a hand with Iran,'" he said.
Trump claimed that South Korea, however, refused, so he said, "'Wait a minute. We have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong Un, your next-door neighbor, and you're not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran. That's strange.'"
