North Korea's Kim vows toughest anti-U.S. policy before Trump takes office

Kim Jong Un vows toughest anti-U.S. policy, raising prospects for high-profile diplomacy with Trump administration.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he will implement the “toughest” anti-U.S. policy, less than a month before Donald Trump takes office as U.S. president, the country's state media reported Sunday (December 29, 2024).

Trump's return to the White House raises prospects for high-profile diplomacy with North Korea. During his first term, Mr. Trump met Mr. Kim three times for talks on the North's nuclear programme.

Many experts however say a quick resumption of Kim-Trump summitry is unlikely as Mr. Trump would first focus on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. North Korea's support for Russia's war against Ukraine also poses a challenge to efforts to revive diplomacy, experts say.

During a five-day plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party that ended Friday (December 27, 2024), Mr. Kim called the U.S. “the most reactionary state that regards anti-communism as its invariable state policy.” Mr. Kim said that the U.S.-South Korea-Japan security partnership is expanding into “a nuclear military bloc for aggression."

“This reality clearly shows to which direction we should advance and what we should do and how,” Kim said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

It said Mr. Kim's speech “clarified the strategy for the toughest anti-U.S. counteraction to be launched aggressively” by North Korea for its long-term national interests and security.

KCNA didn't elaborate on the anti-U.S. strategy. But it said Mr. Kim set forth tasks to bolster military capability through defence technology advancements and stressed the need to improve the mental toughness of North Korean soldiers.