South Korean President Lee Jae Myung announced Friday that U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed to give serious thought to a gradual, phased strategy for addressing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs — one that focuses on immediate containment while keeping complete denuclearization as the ultimate long-term goal.
Lee made the announcement at a press briefing after returning home from France, where he spoke with Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit. According to Lee, Trump indicated it was “time to pay attention” to North Korea and seemed eager to restart direct dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, though he expressed frustration about how to move forward.
“Without giving up on denuclearisation, I explained that we should go step by step — short term, medium term and long term — rather than immediately,” Lee told reporters.
Lee described the short-term priorities as preventing North Korea from producing additional nuclear material, transferring weapons or materials to other countries, and advancing its intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities further.
In response, Trump said the approach “could be one way” and indicated he would think carefully about it, according to Lee.
Lee also conveyed to Trump that relying solely on sanctions and pressure would not be enough to resolve the standoff, noting that North Korea already appears to possess a significant number of nuclear weapons and is continuing to produce enough nuclear material to build roughly 10 to 20 more each year.
Lee added that North Korea’s ICBM technology is approaching its final stage of development, including the ability to re-enter the atmosphere, and that military cooperation between North Korea and Russia in the Ukraine war has significantly weakened the impact of international sanctions.
Trump held historic face-to-face meetings with Kim Jong Un during his first term in office, but their second summit — held in Hanoi in 2019 — fell apart over disagreements on denuclearization steps and the easing of sanctions. Since then, North Korea has taken a more hardened stance, declaring its nuclear status permanent and non-negotiable.
Shipbuilding also came up during the conversation. Lee said Trump asked whether South Korea could quickly construct 10 U.S. warships. “I said of course it was possible and that we would do our best,” Lee said. South Korea has already committed to $150 billion in shipbuilding investments in the United States, led by South Korean companies, as part of a trade agreement with Washington.
Lee noted that he sat beside Trump for roughly 90 minutes during a G7 dinner, which he said allowed for more in-depth conversation than a formal summit setting typically permits.
Over the course of his 10-day European trip, Lee attended the G7 summit and held both formal and informal meetings with multiple world leaders, including Trump, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
In a separate development, Lee said that during a visit to the Vatican, he asked Pope Leo to consider traveling to the Demilitarized Zone — the buffer strip separating North and South Korea — and, if circumstances allowed, to North Korea itself. Lee said the pontiff responded that he would actively consider and pursue the idea.
