BREAKING, Kim Yo Jong said she was not aware of any conversations between her brother and US President Donald TrumpPublished August 19, 2026August 19, 2026The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has denied any ongoing communications between US President Donald Trump and her brother, maintaining that the United States continues to engage in a “hostile” policy toward her country. “Regarding recent news from Washington about communication between North Korean leaders North and the United States, I’m completely “I don’t know, and it’s probably the only matter related to our top leaders’ foreign policy that I don’t know about,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday. Trump said later on Wednesday that he gets along well with Kim and planned to meet with the North Korean leader. Trump, who has often touted what he says is a close relationship with the unpredictable North Korean leader, made the claim after being pressed by reporters about whether. His recent overtures to Kim Jong Un and his very public resentment toward South Korea had resulted in some progress toward talks. “Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect,” Trump said. “I understand that. He understands me.” Trump has expressed frustration over South Korea’s refusal to help in the war against Iran. On Sunday, Trump ordered the Pentagon to significantly reduce joint military exercises with South Korea, which hosts about 28,500 American troops, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice but without a definitive conclusion to the conflict. Trump said on Monday that American soldiers were in South Korea “protecting from Kim Jong.” Un, your next-door neighbor, and you’re not going to help us in a very easy military operation in Iran. That’s strange.” The US president has also questioned the usefulness of other long-standing military alliances, including NATO, which he has also pressured to help in the Iran war and pay the United States for the protection that NATO member countries receive from Washington. On Monday, Trump said he had convinced South Korea to pay $3 billion a year during his first term as president and planned to increase that amount. “So they were paying us. They would have paid us a lot more,” he said. “But we can’t go around and protect all these countries, especially when they’re not there to help us.” Trump began his first term as president by threatening North Korea and reminding Kim that his country possessed a much more powerful nuclear capability. a historic meeting between the leaders of the two countries described as an agreement on the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. They met again in 2019, including in a dramatic encounter at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), where Trump became the first American president to cross into North Korea. Trump’s courtship of Kim has not produced many results, analysts have noted. North Korea has expanded its nuclear and missile capabilities and intensified its alliance with Russia, even sending tens of thousands of troops to fight alongside Moscow in the Ukraine war.
