President Donald Trump transformed his initial meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung into a diplomatic initiative directed at Kim Jong Un.

This was a strategic move for peace in the Korean Peninsula, while his proposal for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine remains stagnant, despite his Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin two weeks ago.

During Monday’s White House meeting, the president repeatedly emphasized his ‘great relationship’ with the North Korean dictator.

And he even floated the wild – and unprecedented – possibility of building one of his signature Trump Towers dripped in gold in North Korea.

As discussions between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky continue to be deadlocked, Trump seized the opportunity during his time with President Lee to express his willingness to re-engage diplomatically with North Korea.

And it could be a way the U.S. president can save face if a Russia-Ukraine peace deal falls through. 

Evelyn Farkas, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration, mentioned to the Daily Mail that Trump’s shift towards North Korea is expected yet potentially beneficial.

“Given that negotiations have stalled because of Russia’s insistence on extreme demands and their dismissal of President Trump’s ceasefire proposals, he might feel encouraged to focus more on diplomacy concerning North Korea,” Farkas commented.

Republican strategist Ron Bonjean suggested Trump’s renewed North Korea outreach serves as a calculated diversion from his stalled Russia-Ukraine peace efforts.

‘This move will generate an intense level of media coverage where Trump could potentially inject the concept of negotiating some type of peace agreement that would start the ball rolling,’ Bonjean told the Daily Mail.

When asked directly whether Trump sees North Korea as a chance to redeem himself from his faltering Russia deal, Bonjean confirmed the strategic pivot.

‘The Russia-Ukraine peace agreement is going to be likely drawn out for months or years, so creating this conversation with North Korea would absolutely replace the previous intense momentum of activity.’

Whether Trump has the discipline to follow through with his Korean counterparts remains to be seen. 

Trump, who became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea during his previous term, made clear his desire to resurrect the high-stakes diplomacy that defined his earlier presidency. 

‘I would like to have a meeting. I get along great with [Kim Jong Un],’ Trump said, though Kim has so far played coy, ‘rebuffing Seoul’s confidence-building measures and feigning disinterest in Washington’s talk of a summit,’ according to Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute. 

The shift comes as Trump’s administration faces multiple frozen conflicts globally, with the president seeking to leverage personal relationships to break diplomatic deadlocks where traditional negotiations have stalled.

Trump hinted at maintaining back-channel communications with Kim Jong Un that go beyond official diplomatic protocols, telling reporters they discuss things they probably ‘aren’t supposed to talk about’ – suggesting the kind of personal diplomacy that has eluded him with Putin.

Much like he did with Putin and Zelensky, Trump dangled the possibility of orchestrating a dramatic three-way summit, saying it would be ‘interesting’ to facilitate a meeting between North and South Korean leaders while potentially meeting Kim simultaneously during a planned trade visit to South Korea. 

However, experts warn Trump’s Korean pivot could backfire just as his Russia strategy has stalled after the showmanship presented at the summit. 

Cronin predicts Kim will ‘exploit any rift in the alliance’ at a time when North Korea has aligned with Russia and expanded its nuclear capabilities with Chinese backing.

‘The irony is stark—Trump and Lee cast themselves as peacemakers, while Kim prepares once again to play the spoiler,’ Cronin warned, suggesting Trump may be walking into yet another diplomatic dead-end. 

Trump’s praise for North Korea’s ‘great potential’ echoes his earlier optimistic assessments of diplomatic breakthroughs that ultimately failed to materialize.

Trump criticized previous South Korean leaders while praising Lee’s approach to North Korea – a calculated move as Lee’s political base demands bridging the North-South divide through peace talks that have yet to materialize.

Foreign policy experts noted Lee ‘played into Trump’ on North Korea relations, with the South Korean president even joking about building a Trump Tower in North Korea. 

That would add to more than 10 foreign locations.

Internationally, Trump-branded residential and hotel developments include Trump Towers in India, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Doha, Qatar, Istanbul and Ireland, to name a few. 

A Trump Tower in North Korea would be quite the addition to the lineup, representing an unprecedented move for the brand.

Besides suggesting new real-estate, Trump teed up further diplomatic theater, suggesting Lee could join him for talks with Xi Jinping in China.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told the Daily Mail that Korean diplomacy is ‘strategic’ given North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia and China’s aggression, though he stopped short of endorsing Trump’s approach as an alternative to the stalled Russia peace plan.

‘The president has a weird relationship with these dictators,’ Bacon responded.

Could a working relationship with North Korea be a chance for Trump to redeem himself? Bacon replied that the president is dancing with the devil either way.

‘Both Putin and Kim are thugs and killers,’ Bacon said.

Cronin adding that, in his opinion, a deal with North Korea seems more attainable than Russia, but remains a pipe–dream for a man clamoring for a Nobel Peace Prize. 

‘Buoyed by Moscow’s backing and emboldened by Washington’s restraint and pivot to China, Kim’s price for cooperation has risen so high that any serious bargain is out of reach,’ Cronin said.

Noting Trump’s three summits with Kim Jong Un during his first term, a White House official affirmed that Trump’s goal is to ‘achieve complete denuclearization.’