While Israel’s war in Gaza and Russia’s war in Ukraine are dominating headlines at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), quiet but urgent concerns about North Korea and its nuclear program are being discussed behind closed doors.
It’s an issue that is being ‘continuously brought up,’ according to a senior State Department official. It was a particular concern in Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s meetings with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts and in President Donald Trump’s recent meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.
And while the lead-up to two Trump-Kim summits dominated the president’s first term, no such meeting is on the books for his second term, according to the official. Trump will travel to South Korea in October, but he currently has no plans to stop at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
‘Our policy remains a complete denuclearization of North Korea,’ the official said. Kim has said he’s only open to talks if the U.S. drops the denuclearization demand.
‘If the United States drops the absurd obsession with denuclearizing us and accepts reality, and wants genuine peaceful coexistence, there is no reason for us not to sit down with the United States,’ Kim was quoted as saying by state news agency KCNA.
Trump has also signaled an intent to sit down with Russian and Chinese leaders to come to an agreement on scaling back nuclear weapons arsenals. It’s a top priority for the administration, according to the official, but the ball is in China’s court to start being honest about its nuclear arsenal.
‘The first thing that would need to happen is for the Chinese to acknowledge and be more transparent about its own programs, in order to understand what direction within the discussion, what objectives, could be obtained.’
The Defense Department has assessed that China has around 600 nuclear warheads as of mid-2024, but is rapidly increasing its supplies and may have over 1,000 by 2030.
Open source estimates place North Korea’s arsenal at about 50 warheads, with fissile material for 70–90 warheads total.
The official also confirmed that reviews of the AUKUS (Australia-United Kingdom-U.S.) submarine pact are under way across all partner governments, with updates expected this fall. Those talks, along with the October summits President Trump plans to attend in Asia, are expected to set the tone for the next phase of U.S. engagement in the region.
With North Korea showing no sign of returning to talks and China stonewalling on transparency, U.S. officials say the administration is leaning on allies and doubling down on deterrence.