[370]

Trump meets Kim Jong-un at the Singapore summit, June 2018.
North Korea
See also: 2018–19 Korean peace process
In 2017, when North Korea's nuclear weapons were increasingly seen as a serious threat,[371] Trump escalated his rhetoric, warning that North Korean aggression would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen".[372][373] In 2017, Trump declared that he wanted North Korea's "complete denuclearization", and engaged in name-calling with leader Kim Jong-un.[372][374]
After this period of tension, Trump and Kim exchanged at least 27 letters in which the two men described a warm personal friendship.[375][376] Trump met Kim three times: in Singapore in 2018, in Hanoi in 2019, and in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in 2019.[377] Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korean leader or to set foot on North Korean soil.[377] Trump also lifted some U.S. sanctions against North Korea.[378]
However, no denuclearization agreement was reached,[379] and talks in October 2019 broke down after one day.[380] While conducting no nuclear tests since 2017, North Korea continued to build up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.