Trump touts ties with North Korea’s Kim as Seoul pushes for tariff resolution

US President Donald Trump has said he will “get the conflict solved with North Korea”, amid trade negotiations with South Korea that look set to go right down to the wire.

At an Oval Office event on Friday where he highlighted his professed efforts to resolve global conflicts, Trump was asked whether he had written a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as was reported this month.

Trump did not directly answer the question, but said: “I’ve had a good relationship with Kim Jong-un and get along with him, really great. So we’ll see what happens.”

“Somebody’s saying there’s a potential conflict, I think we’ll work it out,” Trump said. “If there is, it wouldn’t involve us.”

Seoul-based NK News, a website that monitors North Korea, reported this month that North Korea’s delegation at the United Nations in New York had repeatedly refused to accept a letter from Trump to Kim.

Trump and Kim held three summits during Trump’s 2017-2021 first term and exchanged a number of letters that Trump called “beautiful” before the unprecedented diplomatic effort broke down over US demands that Kim give up his nuclear weapons.