Trump plays nuclear poker with Kim Jong Un — but who holds the cards?

As President Donald Trump looks to revive summit diplomacy with Kim Jong Un, he faces a North Korea with a larger nuclear arsenal, a powerful new partner in Russia and far less incentive to strike a deal than it had during his first term.

Trump’s renewed outreach comes as he remains locked in a nuclear standoff with Iran, reopening another piece of unfinished business from his first term. Unlike Iran, however, North Korea already possesses a mature nuclear arsenal and multiple delivery systems, leaving Trump with little prospect of eliminating the threat militarily and a narrower path to a deal than he had eight years ago.

Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Trump may see renewed North Korea diplomacy as both a chance to shift attention from Iran and an opportunity to reduce the number of adversaries confronting the United States.

“I think he frankly wants to take the headlines off of Iran,” Cha told Fox News Digital, arguing that Trump also sees North Korea as a fundamentally different nuclear challenge. “There really isn’t a military solution for a country like North Korea that has 50, 60, 70 nuclear weapons and several delivery systems for those weapons.”

The recovery of American war dead could also provide Trump with a concrete humanitarian result. The Singapore agreement included a commitment to recover the remains of U.S. service members killed in North Korea during the Korean War, and Pyongyang returned 55 boxes believed to contain American remains in 2018.

A future agreement could seek to restart recovery efforts inside North Korea, where joint U.S.-North Korean recovery operations last took place in 2005.

But a sweeping disarmament deal remains unlikely. Davenport said Trump should instead focus on measures that reduce nuclear risk and slow the program’s growth, including a missile-test moratorium, crisis communication and a potential freeze on nuclear development.

“The ideal would be a return of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, but that’s not going to happen early in the process,” Davenport said.

She said satellite imagery could still help monitor reactor operations, plutonium reprocessing and missile testing, even if verifying a halt in uranium enrichment would be far more difficult.

A direct crisis-management channel could carry value of its own — Washington has no established direct military line to Pyongyang.

“If all of a sudden our radars pick up a ballistic missile flying through the air, we have no way of contacting North Korea to ask them, ‘Is this your intent? Did you send this?’” Cha said.

Cha also sees a measure of restraint in North Korea’s recent record. Pyongyang conducted several intercontinental ballistic missile tests during the Biden administration, including launches in 2022, 2023 and 2024, but has not tested an ICBM in flight since Trump returned to office. North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test since 2017.

Any agreement would also test the U.S.-South Korea alliance. Seoul may welcome renewed dialogue after years without negotiations, Cha said, but it will be wary of concessions involving U.S. troop levels or exercises.

Cha said South Korea likely did not know in advance that Trump would reduce military exercises, but Seoul could still view renewed U.S.-North Korea negotiations as a net positive if they restart diplomacy. Longer term, however, South Korea would want a role in the negotiations and assurances that its alliance interests are not sacrificed in a deal with Pyongyang.

“Where the rubber really hits the road on this is the whole question of U.S. troops in Korea because North Korea would like them out, South Korea would like them to stay, and it’s not entirely clear what President Trump wants,” Cha said.