NEW: Trump Hints At Another High Stakes Meeting With North Korea’s Kim Jong Un

President Donald Trump indicated on Wednesday that he plans to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year.

While speaking with reporters during a tour of a helipad under construction on the White House South Lawn, Trump responded to a question about whether he expected such a meeting by saying, “Yeah, I will be.”

Trump elaborated on his relationship with the North Korean leader, stating, “I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he’s going to be fine as long as we have a smart president.” He continued, “The fact that I get along with him – that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons. They should have never allowed it. If I were president, I wouldn’t have allowed it. But he’s got them.”

These comments follow Trump’s earlier acknowledgment that Kim had responded to outreach efforts. On Monday, when asked why Kim had not replied to requests for conversation, Trump said, “How do you know he hasn’t responded?”

When pressed further, he indicated that the North Korean dictator has indeed responded and described the exchange as “very positive.” Trump has previously noted that “Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect” and that “I understand him. He understands me.”

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BREAKING: President Trump says he expects to meet with North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un later this year, in a likely revival of his first-term diplomatic push to control or persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Trump says North Korea's nuclear… pic.twitter.com/PWXv43ZE2o

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The statements come after Trump directed a reduction in joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises. “Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea. These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), 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,” the president posted on Truth Social this past weekend.

“Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises! While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’ Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which began August 17 and was originally scheduled to run through August 27, has been adjusted as a result. U.S. and South Korean officials confirmed the drills will now conclude on August 21, reducing the duration from 11 days to five. Associated live-training events have been scaled back, with certain activities canceled or converted to simulations, according to the Pentagon, which stated that the changes preserve essential readiness and training objectives

The recent developments have been framed by U.S. and South Korean officials as positive developments towards another diplomatic breakthrough with Pyongyang. Trump met with representatives of the North Korean government multiple times during his first term, as the two leaders held summits in Singapore in 2018 and Hanoi in 2019. They also met briefly at the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea in June 2019, during which Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to step into North Korean territory.

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