WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he expects to hold a face-to-face meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by the end of the year.
Trump, who has been making diplomatic overtures toward Kim since the beginning of this week, also told reporters that North Korea possesses "57 very powerful nuclear weapons." The remarks came at a time when the U.S. president has been struggling to negotiate with Iran over nuclear and other issues.
"Should have never allowed it to happen...If I were president, I wouldn't have allowed it, but he's got them," Trump said, while speaking of the North Korean leader and Pyongyang's arsenal.
Trump said he cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, but the situation involving Kim is "going to be fine" as long as the United States has a "smart president."
Asked about the possibility of meeting with Kim later in 2026, Trump said, "Yeah, I will be," without offering details, including whether he has been exchanging letters with the North Korean leader.
North Korea has long sought to be recognized as a nuclear weapons state, demanding that status as one of the preconditions for resuming talks with Washington.
In 2018, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet with a North Korean leader when he shook Kim's hand in Singapore. At the time, the two leaders agreed to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Trump held two more face-to-face meetings with Kim the following year, but both sides ultimately returned home empty-handed, with North Korea continuing to bolster its missile and nuclear capabilities.
In a separate press availability later Wednesday at the White House, Trump dodged a question about whether his goal in trying to resume diplomacy with North Korea is still to realize its denuclearization.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute believes North Korea has assembled an estimated 60 nuclear warheads and possesses enough fissile material to make at least 30 more.
Trump claimed that Kim likes him and that a friendly relationship between the United States and North Korea would benefit the rest of the world.
"I think our nation, and I think other nations, frankly, whether it's Japan or South Korea, they're a lot safer if I'm president," he said.
As talks to end the war with Iran stalled over an agreement on curtailing its nuclear program and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, Trump started sending conciliatory messages toward North Korea, initially in connection with an ongoing annual U.S.-South Korean joint military exercise.
Following his call to scale back the annual exercise, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday that it will be cut short by six days.
The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise began Monday and is now set to conclude Friday, rather than Aug. 27 as originally planned.
"I didn't like the fact that we're doing these massive military exercises really against North Korea when I'm friendly with him," Trump said when he spoke to the press on Wednesday, referring to Kim.
He added the exercise was "very insulting to somebody that, frankly, has been, during my term at least, very well behaved."
However, Kim Yo Jong, the influential younger sister of the North Korean leader, said downsizing the exercise does not change its hostile nature, in a statement carried by Pyongyang's official media.
