Trump returns to UN with praise for Kim

UNITED NATIONS — A year after he derided North Korea’s dictator as “Rocket Man,” President Donald Trump expressed lavish praise for Kim Jong Un on Monday as the president prepared to use his second United Nations address to denounce what an aide called Iran’s “global torrent of destructive activity.”

In New York for the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting, Trump told reporters he expects to meet Kim again as a follow-up to their June 12 summit in Singapore, a meeting Trump later claimed had produced a promise from Pyongyang to begin the process of denuclearization.

“Chairman Kim has been terrific,” Trump said Monday, insisting North Korea is “making tremendous progress.”

The progress is difficult to see. To all appearances, negotiations have stalled and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, has found no evidence that Pyongyang has dismantled any nuclear infrastructure or prepared an inventory of its arsenal, the first steps toward denuclearization. U.S. officials have not challenged that assessment.

After attending a counternarcotics conference Monday morning, Trump held bilateral meetings in a suite at the Lotte Palace Hotel in midtown Manhattan. During the first, he and South Korean President Moon Jae-in celebrated the signing of a new trade agreement, marking the first time Trump has inked a bilateral trade deal with another country since taking office.

Trump called the agreement a “historic milestone” although the changes agreed upon — doubling the number of U.S. automobiles that can be sold in South Korea and keeping a tariff on South Korean steel in place through 2041 — were largely cosmetic, given that a broader renegotiation would have required approval from Congress.

“This agreement will reduce bureaucracy and increase prosperity in both of our countries,” Trump said.

Trump and his aides made clear he will focus his ire on Iran this week, and there were signs he is backing down from his demands for a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, a position that had put him at odds with his national security team.

John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, said the administration is planning to keep troops in Syria until Iran withdraws its own forces from the country, outlining a strategy shift that could leave U.S. forces on the ground there indefinitely.

“We’re not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders, and that includes Iranian proxies and militias,” Bolton told The Associated Press.