Kim Jong Un touts good Trump memories, rejects denuclearization

Soo-Hyang Choi, Bloomberg News on Sep 21, 2025

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he has “good memories” of Donald Trump and could talk with the U.S. president again if Washington drops its demands that Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear program, adding that he’ll never surrender his nuclear arsenal.

“Personally, I still have good memories of the current U.S. President Trump,” Kim said in a speech at a parliamentary session carried by official state media Monday. Kim said there’s “no reason not to face the U.S.” if it drops its “vain denuclearization fixation and accepts reality.”

Kim said denuclearizing North Korea is a concept of the past, according to the Korean Central News Agency. “We will never lay down our nuclear weapons,” Kim said. “The world knows well what the U.S. does after it forces others to give up their nuclear program and disarm.”

The remarks come less than three weeks after Kim returned home from attending a military parade in Beijing where he stood shoulder to shoulder with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a historic show of united defiance against the U.S.-led world order.

Trump and Kim met in person three times during the U.S. leader’s first term as president, but those interactions failed to convince Kim to curb the development of his nuclear weapons program. North Korea has since rebuffed the idea of sitting down with the U.S. and emerged as a key ally of Putin, supporting his war on Ukraine.

Kim blamed U.S. military drills with its Asian allies for destabilizing security in the region and ruled out accepting South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s proposal for a three-stage denuclearization, labeling it no different from his predecessor’s attempt to disarm North Korea.

“We will not sit down with South Korea, nor will we do anything together,” Kim said.

The speech comes as Lee travels to New York on Monday to attend the United Nations General Assembly’s annual session. Lee is expected to lay out his foreign policy vision at the meeting, just as South Korea prepares to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju that begins Oct. 31. Trump earlier said he would meet with Xi on the sidelines of the APEC event.

The U.S. president also said in August that he would like to meet Kim this year, touting a “very good relationship” with the North Korean leader. It’s unclear if the two countries are actually engaged in communications.

“Ensuring security and safeguarding peace by means of powerful strength is our unchanging choice,” Kim said. “We are prepared to respond to everything.”