US President Donald Trump kept open the possibility of meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his Asia trip next month, telling reporters “I may” when asked whether he intended to seek another encounter. The remarks, made at the White House on Monday before he boarded Marine One, revived speculation about a resumption of the personal diplomacy that defined his first term.
Trump is due to attend the ASEAN summit in Manila on November 16 and the APEC summit in Shenzhen, China, from November 17 to 19, where he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for the third time this year. He has spoken often of wanting to see Kim again; in August he told reporters he expected a meeting later this year. The Wall Street Journal reported in August, citing US officials, that Trump had pressed aides to arrange a meeting as early as this autumn, with the Shenzhen APEC floated as a possible venue.
No meeting scheduled — yet
Neither Washington nor Pyongyang has announced a meeting. No date, location or agenda has been released by either government, and North Korea is not one of APEC’s 21 member economies — so Kim’s presence in Shenzhen cannot be assumed. Any encounter would require separate arrangements, either in China or elsewhere on the trip.
The stakes are familiar: the two leaders met three times in Trump’s first term — Singapore in June 2018, Hanoi in February 2019, and Panmunjom in June 2019 — but talks stalled afterward, and North Korea has since continued expanding its nuclear and missile programs.
Why it matters now
A fourth encounter would be the most consequential US-North Korea diplomacy in years, coming as Washington juggles crises from the Middle East to Ukraine. For now, the White House’s message is deliberately ambiguous: open, but unplanned — a posture that keeps Pyongyang guessing while costing Trump nothing.
The trip’s diplomacy will unfold alongside the week’s other high-stakes announcements, from the Nobel Peace Prize decision to debates over trust in public institutions. Whether “I may” becomes “I will” is, as ever with this relationship, a matter of watching what happens next. Read the original wire reporting via IANS and NRI Page.
