On Sunday, Kim Yo Jong — the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — sharply dismissed the U.S. push for denuclearization as an “anachronistic dream.” She asserted that Washington’s efforts to “backbite” North Korea’s status hold zero legally binding force.Declaring that Pyongyang will steadily expand its nuclear arsenal in the face of U.S.-led threats, she flatly rejected Washington’s insistence that President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had confirmed a shared goal of denuclearization during their recent Beijing summit.Miss Kim’s familiar, fiery rhetoric was deliberately timed, arriving just a day before Xi’s first visit to Pyongyang in seven years. It also comes as Trump faces a “seven-year itch” of his own since his historic DMZ summit with Kim Jong Un in June 2019. With the Korean Peninsula now far more combustible than during Trump’s first term, a challenging question arises: What can he actually do to contain Kim?
TRUMP’S IRAN WAR IS PREVENTING A NORTH KOREA CRISIS
To understand Trump’s limited options, one must first look at the competing, deeply entrenched desires of the regional actors.
North Korea: Kim Jong Un’s motives are entirely existential. Unlike Iran’s regime, which seeks to project regional power through a network of violent proxies, Kim’s ultimate ambition is simpler but more stubborn: dynastic survival. He wants to ensure the Kim family continues to rule North Korea indefinitely. To achieve this, he believes he requires a credible nuclear second strike capability that can deter even the United States. His immediate diplomatic goals are official recognition as a nuclear state and the removal of crippling economic sanctions.
