Rubio: Trump Open to Kim Talks, No Meeting Scheduled

The public signal of openness without a confirmed meeting marks a continuation of the conditional engagement posture the Trump administration has maintained toward Pyongyang since returning to office.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that President Donald Trump remains open to direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but that no meeting has been scheduled, according to The Korea Times.

Rubio made the remarks at a press conference following a Group of 20 foreign ministers' meeting held in Atlanta. The G20 gathering brought together senior diplomats from the world's largest economies, providing Rubio a multilateral stage from which to address the North Korea question publicly.

"I think the president's perspective is" that talks are possible if Pyongyang is willing to discuss issues of concern to Washington and its allies, Rubio said, according to The Korea Times. The secretary did not specify which issues Washington would require Pyongyang to address as a precondition, and that detail remains unknown. A formal statement from the State Department would clarify whether any preconditions have been formally communicated to Pyongyang.

North Korea has not publicly responded to Rubio's remarks as of the publication of this article. Pyongyang's posture toward engagement has varied across administrations. During Trump's first term, Kim and Trump held three summits between 2018 and 2019, including meetings in Singapore, Hanoi, and at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, none of which produced a verified denuclearization agreement, according to contemporaneous reporting by multiple major news organizations.

The Hanoi summit in February 2019 ended without agreement after the two sides failed to reconcile differences over the scope of sanctions relief Pyongyang sought in exchange for limited nuclear concessions, as documented by the U.S. State Department and widely reported at the time.

Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, North Korea has continued ballistic missile testing activity. South Korean and U.S. Military authorities have documented multiple such tests in 2025 and into 2026, though the precise timeline and frequency of tests since the new administration took office are subject to ongoing official tracking by the Combined Forces Command in Seoul.

Rubio's comments come at a period of active U.S. Diplomatic engagement. The Atlanta G20 foreign ministers' meeting placed the United States in direct contact with counterparts from countries including South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, all of which have stated interests in the trajectory of the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea and Japan have both historically sought close coordination with Washington on any direct U.S.-North Korea engagement, given that both countries fall within range of North Korean missile systems. Whether Rubio's remarks were preceded by consultation with Seoul or Tokyo is not confirmed in the available source material.

China, which shares a border with North Korea and is Pyongyang's primary economic partner, has consistently called for dialogue over pressure as the primary tool for managing North Korea's nuclear program, a position Beijing has reiterated in multiple United Nations Security Council statements over the past decade.

The practical path to any renewed Trump-Kim meeting would require back-channel communication, likely through third parties or existing diplomatic liaison arrangements. The specific mechanism by which the two governments have communicated, if at all, since January 2025 has not been publicly disclosed by either side.

What would reveal the true state of negotiations is any confirmation from Pyongyang's state media, KCNA, that contact has been made, or any corroborating disclosure from a U.S. Official beyond Rubio's public comments at the Atlanta press conference.