North Korea delivered a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump for flaunting his supposedly friendly relations with Kim Jong-un, saying “we do not care” about the Republican.
The state-run Korean Central News Agency ran an editorial after the former president said Washington’s relations with the East Asian country would improve if he was re-elected in November.
“No matter what administration takes office in the US, the political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this,” the state news agency said.
It rejected the idea that Mr Trump’s first presidency had a substantial impact on US-North Korea relations, and said personal connections and diplomacy should be looked at separately.
And it said it had no interest in talking to a possible second Trump administration if all it offers are “dialogue with sinister attempts and dialogue as an extension of confrontation”.
Speaking at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week, Mr Trump flaunted his supposedly strong personal ties with Mr Kim and suggested the North Korean leader probably wanted him back in the White House. “I think he misses me,” the former president said.
While acknowledging Mr Trump’s attempt to improve relations during his presidency, the North Korean news agency said that it brought no substantial positive change.
Mr Kim and Mr Trump had a complicated relationship. They initially exchanged barbs, with Mr Trump threatening to unleash “fire and fury” after Mr Kim tested a series of nuclear weapons in 2017 and KCNA responding by calling him a “dotard” and his envoys “gangsters”.
But they went on to what seemed to be a historic diplomatic breakthrough in 2018, holding summits in Singapore and Hanoi in the next two years.
At the 2018 summit in Singapore, they signed a statement agreeing to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and improving relations.
The engagement declined after the 2019 Hanoi summit ended abruptly without an agreement, mainly due to differences over sanctions relief and denuclearisation steps.
Mr Trump has claimed that he and Mr Kim had been exchanging letters and had fallen in love.
After Joe Biden took over as president from Mr Trump in early 2021, Washington deepended ties with the US’s long-time allies in the region South Korea and Japan, conducting regular defensive drills in the Korean Peninsula rather than engaging directly with the Kim regime.
