# Seoul Welcomes Trump's Summit Push While Pyongyang Keeps Its Guard Up > President Trump says he expects to meet Kim Jong-un again this year, and Seoul is cautiously encouraged, but Kim Yo-jong's noncommittal response and a fresh rocket launch show Pyongyang is in no hurry to say yes. - Source: Korea First - Canonical URL: https://koreafirst.tv/article/seoul-welcomes-trump-s-summit-push-while-pyongyang-keeps-its-guard-up - Author: Korea First Staff - Section: Politics - Published: 2026-08-20T12:55:14.096Z - Updated: 2026-08-20T12:55:14.096Z - Tags: Trump-Kim summit, Kim Yo-jong, North Korea, Lee Jae-myung, nuclear weapons, Ulchi Freedom Shield - Korean edition: https://koreafirst.tv/ko/article/seoul-welcomes-trump-s-summit-push-while-pyongyang-keeps-its-guard-up --- President Trump said he expects to sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un again before the year is out, reviving talk of a fresh summit even as the North answered the overture with a mix of cool distance and a show of force. Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un's sister and one of the regime's most visible spokespeople, responded by saying she was unaware of any recent exchanges between the two leaders, while still acknowledging what she called an excellent personal relationship between them. It was a response built to leave room on both sides, warm enough to keep the door open, vague enough to commit to nothing. ## A Test Fired the Same Day Pyongyang underlined that caution with action. On Wednesday, North Korea fired more than ten rounds from 600 millimeter multiple rocket launchers toward the East Sea, the latest in a string of launches that also hit on August 6 and August 12. South Korean officials have read the earlier tests as protests against the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, the joint drill that President Trump himself ordered scaled back this year. ## Diverging Nuclear Counts The exchange also exposed a gap in how Washington and Seoul see the North's arsenal. Trump put the number of North Korean nuclear warheads at 57, while South Korean intelligence assessments run considerably higher, somewhere between 80 and 120. The gap matters because any future negotiation will have to start from a shared understanding of what is actually on the table, and right now the two allies are not working from the same number. ## Seoul Reads a Cautious Opening President Lee Jae-myung has tried to frame the moment as movement rather than resolution. Speaking after his National Liberation Day address on August 15, Lee voiced support for Trump's effort to create the conditions for dialogue, while cautioning that the latest developments do not yet amount to a formal agreement to resume talks. Officials at the foreign ministry described the situation in similar terms, calling it the makings of a potential virtuous cycle for dialogue rather than a breakthrough already achieved. The push for renewed diplomacy is unfolding alongside a broader reshuffling of the region's diplomatic lines, from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's recent visit to Seoul to Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back's efforts to manage the fallout from the shortened joint exercise. For now, the gap between Trump's summit ambitions and Pyongyang's guarded silence leaves Seoul in a familiar position, hopeful that talks are coming, careful not to say so too soon. --- Originally published by Korea First. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://koreafirst.tv/article/seoul-welcomes-trump-s-summit-push-while-pyongyang-keeps-its-guard-up.