Trump revives summit diplomacy with North Korea ahead of 2026 midterms
Donald Trump is reviving his signature summit diplomacy with North Korea, cutting joint military drills with Seoul and dangling the prospect of another high-stakes meeting with Kim Jong Un weeks before America’s 2026 midterm elections.
Source: Lowy Institute · August 26, 2026 at 4:01 AM · AI-assisted report
Single-source
KUALA LUMPUR, 26 AUGUST 2026 —
Donald Trump is reviving his signature summit diplomacy with North Korea, cutting joint military drills with Seoul and dangling the prospect of another high-stakes meeting with Kim Jong Un weeks before America’s 2026 midterm elections.
Market Impact
The White House has halved combined air and sea exercises with South Korea in what Trump advisers describe as a “goodwill gesture,” while the former president told reporters he would “love to meet Kim again” if the invitation was accepted. The North Korean regime has yet to respond publicly to either move, but hours after the exercise cuts were announced Pyongyang fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.
Trump’s midterm approval rating sits at 33%, one point below his previous record after the 6 January insurrection, and his team is searching for a foreign-policy win they can frame as a personal triumph. A summit with Kim would echo the Singapore summit in June 2018, when 46% of Americans told pollsters the meeting made Trump look stronger—helpful ammunition for a Republican base otherwise fixated on immigration and cultural grievances.
Yet the North’s leverage has grown since 2018. Kim Yo-jong, the leader’s sister, told state media this week that Trump’s relationship with Kim remained “excellent,” but she dismissed the drills cut as routine seasonal adjustments. Meanwhile, Russia and China have deepened ties with Pyongyang; Moscow has deployed North Korean troops to Ukraine in exchange for fuel and food, while Beijing has restored trade flows that blunt the impact of Western sanctions.
For Trump, the attraction is the optics. A made-for-television summit would give him a controlled visual narrative—an “aesthetic victory,” in the words of one adviser—amid wars in Iran, Gaza and Ukraine that have sapped his political capital. In 2018, 38% of Americans believed North Korea gained more from the Singapore talks, yet the spectacle still bolstered Trump’s midterm standing.
South Korea’s left-leaning government has warned against abrupt concessions. Progressive lawmakers argue that any de-escalation should follow formal negotiations rather than one-sided showmanship, but they are divided over the wisdom of ceding ground on joint exercises before reciprocal steps are taken.
Analysts caution that Kim can afford to wait. “Adversaries understand that Trump’s political clock is shorter than theirs,” Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Reuters. “They can let Washington exhaust itself and then demand terms that suit Pyongyang.”