“Under the right circumstances,” President Donald Trump said he would be open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump told Bloomberg in an interview published Monday. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”
The president’s remarks come after North Korea conducted yet another failed missile test early Saturday, a move Trump said “disrespected the wishes of China.”
As a candidate, Trump had expressed similar willingness to meet the North Korean leader. In an interview aired Sunday, Trump called the North Korean dictator “a pretty smart cookie,” repeating other compliments of Kim that he made on the campaign trail.
Trump’s positive comments of Kim stand in contrast to those made by other political leaders.
On Friday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged the United Nations to take new sanctions against North Korea. A day earlier, Tillerson said North Korea’s closest major ally, China, has pledged to impose unilateral sanctions should Pyongyang carry out another nuclear test.
House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy said on Thursday that the chamber would hold a vote on sanctions next week, which he said would target North Korea’s shipping industry and “those who employ North Korean slave labor abroad.”
