Trump says he will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un later this year

Trump Announces Planned Summit with Kim Jong-un, Cites 57 North Korean Warheads

Poinews.com – Speaking from a newly completed helipad at the White House on Wednesday, President Donald Trump confirmed that a face-to-face meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is scheduled for later this year. It would mark the first in-person encounter between the two leaders since Trump’s first term in office. He offered no further specifics about timing or agenda.

A Stark Nuclear Assessment

Amid questions from reporters about recent hints of back-channel communication with Pyongyang, Trump delivered an unusually precise figure for North Korea’s arsenal, asserting the country now fields “57 very powerful nuclear weapons.” He declined to confirm whether the two leaders have been exchanging written correspondence, though he insisted their personal rapport remains strong.

“And you know what, the fact that I get along with him, that’s a good thing not a bad thing. He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons. Should have never allowed it to happen.”

“If I were president, I wouldn’t have allowed it. But he’s got them.”

Trump then framed the broader strategic picture in blunt personal terms:

“I know Kim Jong-un very well, and he’s going to be fine. As long as we have a smart president, he’s going to be fine. If we have a dumb president, then he’s probably not going to be so fine.”

Drill Scale-Back Precedes the Announcement

The summit news landed just days after Trump ordered a reduction in joint US-South Korea military exercises, which he labelled “costly” and said were sending an “inappropriate and hostile” signal toward Pyongyang. In a Truth Social post accompanying that decision, he characterised North Korea as a “Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.”

IAEA Flags Accelerating Nuclear Activity

Independent verification of Pyongyang’s programme has been tightening. In April, Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters in Seoul that North Korea was exhibiting a “very serious increase” in its capacity to produce nuclear weapons. He estimated the existing stockpile at “a few dozen warheads” and confirmed a “rapid increase in the operation of the Yongbyon 5-megawatt reactor.”

“All of them point to a very serious increase in the capabilities of the DPRK in the area of nuclear weapons.”

Grossi added that inspectors had also noted heightened operational activity at the reactor’s reprocessing unit alongside “the activation of other facilities.”

Pyongyang’s Own Rhetoric and Test History

In July, North Korean state media reported that the regime had pledged to bolster its nuclear force “in quality and quantity,” with Kim framing a robust military as essential to guaranteeing “true peace.” Since 2006, the country has conducted six confirmed nuclear weapons tests.