Trump would have dialogue with N. Korean leader

Trump would have dialogue with N. Korean leader. May. 19, 2016 08:00. by 워싱턴=이승헌 특파원ddr@donga.com. The likely U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Tuesday he is willing to talk to North Korea's leader to try to stop Pyongyang's nuclear program.

“I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him,” Trump said in an interview with the Reuters news agency on Tuesday (local time). It was the first time that the presumptive Republican nominee mentioned the possibility of a direct talk with the North Korean leader since he declared his presidential bid in June last year. He had called Kim a “maniac.”

However, Trump did not say in detail when and how he would meet the North Korean leader and what to discuss with him. He did not even mention whether he would talk under the premise of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. Reuters reported that if Trump seeks direct dialogue with Kim, the U.S. administration’s North Korea policy will likely undergo a huge change.

Trump also stressed the need to use China as a leverage for inducing the North’s change. “I would put a lot of pressure on China because economically we have tremendous power over China,” he said.

Regarding Trump’s comments, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan said that Trump “seems to have a bizarre fascination with foreign strongmen like Putin and Kim.”