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US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office ahead of a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on March 13, 2025. (UPI/Yonhap)

While sitting in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Friday, US President Donald Trump was asked what he thought of leaders from Russia, Iran and China meeting to discuss nuclear programs. In response, he said it would be a “great achievement if we could bring down the number” of nuclear weapons in the world. 

“We have so many weapons, and the power is so great,” he went on. “No. 1, you don’t need them to that extent. And then we’d have to get others [involved], ‘cause, as you know, in a smaller way — Kim Jong-un has a lot of nuclear weapons, by the way, a lot, and others do also. You have India, you have Pakistan, you have others that have them, and we get them involved.”
 
Here, “we” refers to the world’s three largest nuclear powers — Russia, the United States and China, in that order. In the same meeting, Trump went on to refer to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “nuclear power” and expressed his intent to rebuild a relationship with him.

This remark by Trump goes beyond merely reiterating what he said on his first day back in the White House on Jan. 20. It reflects a broader idea in Trump’s mind — one that goes beyond the mere denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula or North Korea and instead envisions the denuclearization of the world or global nuclear arms reduction and approaches the issue of North Korea’s nukes within that context. 

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call this shift in thinking a “Copernican revolution” in US nuclear policy. Since the North Korean nuclear issue emerged in the early 1990s, the traditional US approach has been to unilaterally demand that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles while leaving its own nuclear strategy untouched. However, Trump is now referring to Kim Jong-un as a leader with nukes at his command and is proposing a global disarmament effort that would include the United States.

To my knowledge, Trump has only mentioned “denuclearization” once in a public statement, including during his presidential campaign, and it was not in the context of denuclearization of North Korea or the Korean Peninsula. On Jan. 23, in a virtual address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he mentioned Russia and China, saying, “We want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think that’s very possible.” 

This statement implied that three of the world’s great powers — the US, Russia and China — should engage in nuclear arms reduction talks. His remarks on Friday go a step further, suggesting that the US, Russia and China should take the lead in nuclear disarmament and then encourage other countries with nuclear weapons, including North Korea, to join this effort. Trump also reportedly sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader proposing the resumption of nuclear negotiations. Taken together, Trump’s talk of nuclear disarmament appears to be less off-the-cuff vamping and more a deliberate and strategic vision or stance.

Trump’s Copernican shift in nuclear policy reflects the intersection of America’s rapidly changing global strategy and Trump’s personal ambitions. The Trump administration acknowledges that a US-led unipolar world is neither realistic nor desirable and instead seeks to maximize American interests — particularly economic interests — within a multipolar world order centered on the US, China and Russia. Making security economically viable and efficient is the operative idea at play here. 

This is evident in Washington’s plan to reduce defense spending and its increased pressure on allies and partners to significantly boost their financial contributions to military alliances. But the bigger picture goal is to push for nuclear disarmament and large-scale reductions in military spending by the US, China and Russia. Through this, Trump envisions a shift from a balance of power through arms competition to a balance of power through disarmament, significantly reducing the military burden on the US.

Trump’s global nuclear disarmament ambitions are also driven by his rivalry with former President Barack Obama. Obama championed a “world without nuclear weapons” in his first year in office (2009) and received a Nobel Peace Prize for it — a “down payment” on a vision he ultimately failed to deliver on. Instead, during his later years in office, Obama approved a US$1 trillion nuclear weapons modernization plan, drawing widespread criticism. 

Trump has, on multiple occasions, questioned why he was never awarded a Nobel like Obama was. It is likely that Trump’s nuclear arms reduction initiative is at least partly motivated by his desire to secure his own place in history. He’s no doubt thinking that if he sets a historic precedent for global nuclear disarmament, no one could deny him a Nobel Prize any longer. 

Trump has also sought to differentiate himself from Obama in his North Korea policy. He criticizes Obama’s insistence on “strategic patience” and his failure to sit down with or even speak with Kim Jong-un for allowing the North Korean nuclear issue to fester.

Indeed, Obama reportedly told Trump in January 2017 when handing over the keys to the White House that North Korea was the most urgent problem facing the US. In contrast, Trump boasts that he has met Kim Jong-un three times and even exchanged “love letters” with him. Now, Trump is signaling that he wants to meet Kim again — this time while recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power and inviting it to participate in global nuclear disarmament talks.

Trump’s new approach presents both challenges and opportunities for South and North Korea.

South Korea remains focused on strengthening its alliance with the US, including extended deterrence, but this stance clashes with Trump’s push for arms reductions. If South Korea fails to adapt to this shift on Trump’s part, it could face further pressure to increase its contributions to defense cost-sharing with the US and other financial burdens. Moreover, discussions on South Korea’s own acquisition of nuclear arms or latent nuclear capabilities, which have gained traction within both conservative and liberal political circles, may lose momentum as Trump seeks to denuclearize.

Meanwhile, Trump’s tactics for placing “maximum pressure” on North Korea are also taking new forms. In his first term, he used economic sanctions and military threats to pressure Pyongyang. In his second term, however, he appears to be shifting to asserting maximum pressure through personal rapport with Kim Jong-un.

The circumstances seem right for Kim to engage with Trump’s proposal. The idea of global nuclear disarmament aligns with long-standing rhetoric out of North Korea. Furthermore, Kim has emphasized North Korea’s status as a “strategic state” so if Trump recognizes him as a nuclear power and invites him to global arms reduction talks, Pyongyang may view it as an opportunity to enhance its strategic position. 

Notably, on Feb. 18, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry reaffirmed its stance that denuclearization was impossible but added an important qualifier: “As long as the US and its vassal forces' hostile threat exists.” This contrasts with the Biden era when Pyongyang did not leave any possibility for negotiation open.

As North Korea maintains its stalwart opposition to denuclearizing, South Korea now faces a new variable in the form of Trump’s vision for a world free of nuclear weapons. Could there be a creative way to reconcile these two positions?

The establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) in Korea or Northeast Asia could be a viable alternative. While North Korea insists that denuclearization is conceptually and practically impossible, a NWFZ could offer a mutually acceptable framework. Additionally, establishing such a zone on the Korean Peninsula or Northeast Asia — a powder keg for nuclear conflict — could align with Trump’s nuclear arms reduction agenda.

By Cheong Wook-Sik, director of the Hankyoreh Peace Institute and director of the Peace Network

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]