--- title: Trump Touts Relationship With North Korea After Missile News description: Days after North Korea unveiled new long-range missiles, Donald Trump touted his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un at the final presidential debate. canonical: https://time.com/5903268/donald-trump-north-korea-missiles-debates/ author: W.J. Hennigan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-10-23T04:21:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:59.689Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Touted His Relationship With North Korea – Even Though He’s Got Little to Show for It og:description: Days after North Korea unveiled new long-range missiles, Donald Trump touted his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un at the final presidential debate. og:url: https://time.com/5903268/donald-trump-north-korea-missiles-debates/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6fba11a4348d8e8e/698a137916d8846276c38ba3/Trump_Kim_meeting_2019_0650.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: U.S. President Donald Trump Visits South Korea og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Touted His Relationship With North Korea – Even Though He’s Got Little to Show for It twitter:description: Days after North Korea unveiled new long-range missiles, Donald Trump touted his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un at the final presidential debate. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6fba11a4348d8e8e/698a137916d8846276c38ba3/Trump_Kim_meeting_2019_0650.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Touted His Relationship With North Korea – Even Though He’s Got Little to Show for It > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=1d42214b-c846-4dc5-8c0f-9fe5bbaddd1f&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Biggest Moments in the Final Presidential Debate [Watch (HLS stream): The Biggest Moments in the Final Presidential Debate](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BU5cjzjb.m3u8) (5:00)  _Published 2020-10-23. The Republican incumbent met former Vice President Joe Biden on the campus of Belmont University in Nashville for the second and final televised debate of this election._  by [W.J. Hennigan](https://time.com/author/w-j-hennigan/)  ## W.J. Hennigan Oct 23, 2020 4:21 AM UTC  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump meet inside the demilitarized zone separating South and North Korea in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump meet inside the demilitarized zone separating South and North Korea in Panmunjom, South Korea, June 30, 2019. Dong-A Ilbo—Handout/Getty Images  by [W.J. Hennigan](https://time.com/author/w-j-hennigan/)  ## W.J. Hennigan Oct 23, 2020 4:21 AM UTC Less than two weeks after North Korea showed off new intercontinental ballistic missiles in a military parade, President Donald Trump touted how his Administration has handled the relations with the nation. “North Korea? We’re not in a war,” Trump said during Thursday’s presidential debate. “We have a good relationship. People don’t understand—having a good relationship with leaders of other countries is a good thing.” That relationship has been accompanied by a number of strategic setbacks for the U.S., and for stability in East Asia. Under Trump, North Korea has relentlessly pursued its military goal of being able to unleash a nuclear strike on the U.S. and its allies. Pyongyang is now believed to have a dozen or more nuclear warheads and an arsenal of several hundred short- and medium-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting South Korea, Japan, and U.S. military bases and territories in the region. North Korea also has developed long-range missiles that experts say can strike every major city in the continental United States. On Oct. 10, the nation’s military rolled out a wide range of hardware, including [four of the biggest](https://www.nknews.org/2020/10/north-korea-reveals-new-giant-icbms-at-rare-predawn-military-parade/) intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) ever seen in North Korea. The ICBMs were hoisted atop truck-based launchers, which indicates they could be rolled into a remote area, blasted off at a moment’s notice, and strike adversaries with little warning. > [](https://twitter.com/nknewsorg/status/1314911296639254528) The development was deeply concerning to defense analysts who say the new weapons could potentially overwhelm U.S. missile defenses, which include 44 ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California designed to shoot weapons out of the sky. “If each new North Korean ICBM can carry 3-4 warheads, we would need about 12-16 interceptors for each missile,” said Jeffrey Lewis, an analyst with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies in a tweet. > [](https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk/status/1315005032165564416) Trump did not address the new ICBMs, instead saying his personal relationship with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un was better than President Barack Obama’s—and that’s what has kept the nation safe. Trump added that after he was elected President in 2016, Obama informed him tensions with Pyongyang were nearing a breaking point. The reason Obama told Trump there might be a war with North Korea was because the U.S. policy of Democrats and Republicans for the past 20 years alike was to prevent North Korea from getting nuclear weapons. The options facing Trump when he took office, were to stick with that policy, and risk war, or accept a nuclear North Korea. Trump chose the latter. Trump also asserted Obama tried to meet with Kim but was turned down because Kim “didn’t like him.” That’s not true, however. Obama refused to sit down with Kim unless he met specific preconditions related to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized Trump for meeting with Kim without preconditions, saying “he’s legitimized North Korea,” a nation known as the “Hermit Kingdom” because it’s so ostracized by most of the world. “That’s like saying we had a good relationship with Hitler before he invaded Europe,” Biden said. > [](https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1319458545000210437) The U.S. and North Korea have engaged in a detente of sorts since the spring 2018 when Trump accepted a proposal to meet Kim face to face. The President took trips to Singapore, Hanoi, and even a [presidential walk across the demilitarized zone](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-north-koreas-kim-wants-to-join-him-at-the-dmz/2019/06/29/ef99dc98-9a99-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad%5Fstory.html) into North Korea. Yet there is more evidence that Kim has bolstered his nuclear arsenal rather than abandon his weapons programs. It’s true, however, that Trump’s relationship with Pyongyang has improved since his first years in office when the President’s called Kim “Little Rocket Man” and openly threatened to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” North Korea hasn’t flight tested long-range missiles or conducted a nuclear test since declaring a moratorium in 2018\. But, as the parade demonstrated, it hasn’t stopped the nation from expanding stockpiles. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5903268/donald-trump-north-korea-missiles-debates/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5903268/donald-trump-north-korea-missiles-debates/"},"headline":"President Trump Touted His Relationship With North Korea – Even Though He’s Got Little to Show for It","datePublished":"2020-10-23T04:21:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:51:59.689Z","description":"Days after North Korea unveiled new long-range missiles, Donald Trump touted his \"very good relationship\" with Kim Jong Un at the final presidential debate.","url":"https://time.com/5903268/donald-trump-north-korea-missiles-debates/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6fba11a4348d8e8e/698a137916d8846276c38ba3/Trump_Kim_meeting_2019_0650.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"W.J. 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