Will Trump and Kim Jong-un meet before the year is out? The prospect of a summit looks slim for now. US President Donald Trump announced in August that he planned to meet by the end of the year, while also declaring that joint military exercises with South Korea would be scaled back. Kim Yo-jong, the sister of the North Korean leader, said that even if the exercises were reduced, their “provocative” nature would not change.
South Korean intelligence assessed last month that the probability of the leaders meeting at the APEC summit in China on November 18-19 was 50 percent. According to Reuters sources, that likelihood has since diminished further. Trump said last week that he could meet at APEC, but on Monday he sent mixed messages, saying, “I don’t think the parties have requested a meeting.” The White House issued a statement. The White House reported that Trump is open to meeting “without preconditions” but that no meeting is planned. Pyongyang media writes that conditions such as sanctions relief could be put forward. Ankit Panda of the Carnegie sees the probability at below 10 percent. The two leaders met three times in 2018-2019, but no concrete results emerged.
Meanwhile, the arms race on the peninsula is accelerating. Pyongyang has tested nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, while Seoul carried out its first hypersonic missile test. As North Korea develops its missile and drone capacity through defense cooperation with Russia, Seoul is also strengthening its own interception systems.
Background
Trump is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 37 news stories mentioning this name in the last 90 days; the most recent is dated October 23, 2026.