Trump says North Korea's Kim has responded to his overtures

A day after he ordered the United States to scale back military exercises with South Korea and called North Korea "unthreatening and respectful," United States President Donald Trump said on Monday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had responded to his outreach.

Trump's relationship with Kim has received less White House emphasis than it did in his first term, when the two men met and exchanged letters, but the US president has repeatedly signaled interest in reviving direct diplomacy with the North Korean leader.

Asked by a reporter in the Oval Office why Kim had not responded to his efforts to reengage, Trump responded, "he has." He did not provide further details.

White House officials and North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond when asked to comment.

Trump on Sunday instructed the Pentagon to "substantially reduce" ​joint military exercises with long-term Asian ally South Korea, citing the cost of the drills and Seoul's refusal to take part in actions against Iran. North Korea denounces such drills as preparations for war.

Kim and Trump's relationship was a dominant theme during Trump's first term. They held summits in 2018 and 2019 before negotiations broke down over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons arsenal. North Korea is under heavy international sanctions over those weapons, as well as its ballistic missiles.

Read: North Korea fires missile ahead of major US-South Korea drills

Last year, Kim's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, conceded that the personal relationship between her brother and Trump was "not bad," but if Washington intended to use a personal relationship as a way to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, the effort would only be the subject of "mockery."

Since Trump and Kim last met in 2019, North Korea has significantly strengthened ties with Russia while maintaining close relations with China. North Korean troops have fought alongside Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv said last week that North Korean-made missiles were used in a Russian ballistic missile attack on a steel plant in Zaporizhzhia.

Trump's administration has repeatedly criticised North Korea's military support for Russia in Ukraine, but on Monday the president said "Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect."

"I understand him. He understands me," he said.

On Tuesday in Pyongyang, while making no mention of Trump, North Korea's state news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying in a message to North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui that North Korea and Russia are working to establish a "new and righteous world order".

North Korea "unthreatening and respectful"

On Sunday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that drills were "not only costly...but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful."

Analysts say that despite North Korea's coolness to Trump's overtures and the much stronger position Kim is in since their last summit, another meeting between the two was possible.

Victor Cha, head of the Korea program at Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank, doubted North Korea would respond immediately, however. "I think they're going to bide their time and wait a little bit," he said.

Cha said part of Trump's motivation for raising North Korea again appeared to be to shift headlines away from his struggles with the Iran war, although he was clearly interested in seeing Kim again.

Read More: North Korea blames US-led alliance for 'new security crisis' in Asia-Pacific

Andrew Yeo at Washington's Brookings Institution said a meeting would be in Kim's interest. "Some say that there's no reason why Kim Jong Un would want to meet Trump because he has Russia and China now in his pocket. But on the flip side, I feel like he has nothing to lose by meeting Trump because he has Russia and China in his pocket," he said.

"For Kim, it's really about reputation. It's about meeting with the US president again, and so it's about reputation and status," Yeo said. "It's just a matter of timing and when's the most optimal timing for Kim Jong Un."

Sydney Seiler, a former US National Intelligence Officer for North Korea, said Trump's latest move was not unprecedented, recalling that he suspended the major Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills in 2018 to encourage dialogue with Kim. "Of course, it didn't gain us that much at the time, but I don't think we lost that much at the time either," he said.