Initially, Kim and Trump fought a verbal battle and exchanged threats, before an extraordinary diplomatic friendship that translated into two meetings and a declaration of love by the former president of the United States.
No significant progress was made, however, and the process stalled after the February 2019 meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, which ended abruptly on the issue of easing sanctions and what Pyongyang was willing to give in return.
According to the BBC documentary, entitled “Trump Takes on the World”, the former US president “surprised even the most experienced diplomats” by offering Kim a ride to North Korea on Air Force One after meeting
If Kim had accepted the offer, the North Korean leader – and probably some people in his entourage – would have boarded the American presidential plane, just as the aircraft would have penetrated North Korean airspace, which would lead to several questions of safety.
“President Trump offered Kim a ride on Air Force One,” Matthew Pottinger, the top Asia expert at Trump’s National Security Council, told the BBC.
“The president knew that Kim had made a multi-day train journey through China to Hanoi and the president said, ‘I can take you home in two hours, if you wish.’ Kim refused.”
For his first meeting with Trump in Singapore in 2018, Kim traveled on an Air China plane. Chinese officials are interested in keeping North Korea – whose existence as a buffer state keeps American troops in South Korea away from China’s border – under its sphere of influence.
During the Singapore meeting, Trump showed Kim the inside of his presidential vehicle – a $ 1.5 million Cadillac known as “The Beast”, in a show of friendship.
The supposed friendship between the United States and North Korea, however, was short-lived. Last month. Kim declared that Washington is his country’s “greatest enemy”, which has the nuclear weapon, and said that the United States’ policy against North Korea “will never change”, regardless of “who is in power”.
The North Korean state press has yet to name Joe Biden, who beat Trump in the November presidential election.
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