"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Trump told Bloomberg News in an interview Monday. "If it's under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that."
No sitting US president has ever met with the leader of North Korea while in power, and the idea is extremely controversial.
White
House press secretary Sean Spicer, however, said later on Monday that
the US would first need to see changes in North Korean behavior before a
potential sit-down.
"We've got to
see their provocative behavior ratcheted down immediately," Spicer said.
"Clearly, the conditions are not there right now."
Spicer also offered an explanation for Trump's view, expressed to CBS, that Kim is a "smart cookie."
Trump says nobody is safe from North Korea 02:20
"He
assumed power at a young age when his father passed," Spicer said.
"There was a lot of potential threats that could have come his way. He's
managed to lead a country forward, despite the concerns that we and so
many people have. He is a young person to be leading a country with
nuclear weapons."
Speaking Tuesday,
a Chinese official said "the only feasible way to a denuclearized
Korean peninsula as well as peace and stability there is through
dialogue and construction."
"This
is also the only correct choice," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang
said, calling on all sides to "find a breakthrough in the resumption of
peace talks as soon as possible."
Trump's
comment about meeting Kim comes as tensions have risen in recent months
between the US and North Korea as Pyongyang has sought to advance its
nuclear and ballistic missile programs and Washington has made a show of
force in the region to deter their use.
The
US directed an aircraft carrier-led strike group to the region as well
as deployed a new anti-ballistic missile system to South Korea.
CIA
Director Mike Pompeo arrived in Seoul over the weekend plans to attend
internal meetings with US Forces Korea and embassy staff, according to
Daniel Turnbull, a spokesperson for the US Embassy.
Despite pivotal elections in South Korea
next week, Pompeo has no plans to meet with any of the presidential
candidates. Leading candidates have promised a new era of relations with
Pyongyang.
Trump said during the
presidential campaign that he would be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un,
explaining in June that "there's a 10% or 20% chance that I can talk
him out of those damn nukes 'cause who the hell wants him to have
nukes."
"I'll speak to anybody," Trump said then.
His
comments received criticism from both sides of the aisle at the time,
and since Trump has become president, top officials in his
administration have taken a more equivocal position on the issue.
In the Bloomberg interview, Trump gave a nod to his willingness to take an unconventional approach.
"Most
political people would never say that," he noted. "But I'm telling you
under the right circumstances I would meet with him."
The North
Korean nuclear issue has quickly become one of the top national
security concerns for the Trump administration and administration
officials have repeatedly stressed the increasing urgency of the
situation. Trump has focused on finding a diplomatic solution to the
North Korean issue -- working increasingly closely with China -- but has
also refused to rule out a military solution to the problem.
Mixed
messages from the Trump administration regarding its policy on North
Korea have also further obscured what the next phase of the standoff on
the Korean Peninsula could be.
On
Monday, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus told "CBS This
Morning" that he could not see a scenario in which Trump and Kim sat
down face-to-face unless Pyongyang was willing to "disarm and give up
what he's put in mountainsides across his country and give up his drive
for nuclear capability and ICBMs."
Speaking
to NPR last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated the US is
willing to engage in talks with Pyongyang, a possibility dismissed in
April by Vice President Mike Pence until North Korea denuclearizes.
source: CNN