U.S. President Donald Trump took his enthusiasm for his détente with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to new heights on Saturday, declaring at a rally with supporters that “we fell in love” after exchanging letters.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim have said that they want to work toward denuclearising the Korean peninsula, holding an unprecedented meeting earlier this year in Singapore to discuss the idea.
‘Back and forth’
“I was really being tough — and so was he. And we would go back and forth,” Mr. Trump told a rally in West Virginia. “And then we fell in love, okay? No, really — he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters,” he said.
His supporters laughed and applauded. Mr. Trump grumbled that commentators would cast him as “unpresidential” for describing Mr. Kim in such glowing terms.
The Trump administration is preparing for a second summit with Mr. Kim to talk about denuclearisation. The time and location have not yet been announced.
Three senior U.S. officials involved in North Korea policy said this week that no progress has been made in moving toward serious negotiations on eliminating or even halting Mr. Kim’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
So far, all three said, the North has not even agreed to define basic terms such as denuclearization, verifiable, and irreversible. Most of the steps Pyongyang has said it has taken could easily be replaced or reversed.
