SEOUL—A day after the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un strolled through a cement factory draped with red banners that hailed the “great era” of his leadership.
Clad in a black leather trench coat, the 42-year-old dictator twirled a cigarette as he reviewed lines of factory employees. He told the workers that he felt invigorated by the “high spirit of the powerful working class.”
Years ago, a U.S. military operation seeking to pummel another country’s nuclear facilities and military assets and decapitate its leader would have badly shaken Kim, who has aggressively expanded his arsenal of atomic weapons in defiance of the U.S. and other larger powers.
Instead, Kim’s strikingly relaxed factory visit underscored the difference in how President Trump has treated adversaries that possess nuclear weapons. In addition to Iran, the Trump administration has targeted other nonnuclear states, such as Venezuela—where the U.S. toppled Nicolás Maduro—and Cuba, where it is seeking regime change by year’s end.
By contrast, Pyongyang has long viewed its nuclear weapons as an insurance for regime survival. At a key political meeting that ended last week, Kim reiterated that trading away the country’s nuclear weapons remained off the table. Future talks with Trump hinge on the U.S. accepting North Korea as a nuclear state.
The killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the continuing conflict is likely to further justify Kim’s rejection of any U.S. overtures to engage in disarmament talks and harden his belief that such diplomacy is ultimately aimed at forcing him to give up his nuclear weapons. Trump administration officials have said the U.S. aims to prevent Iran from building long-range ballistic missiles able to strike the American mainland or allowing Tehran to revive its nuclear work.
Iran, ahead of U.S. and Israeli strikes, didn’t have the capability to immediately build atomic bombs, according to the United Nations nuclear watchdog. But North Korea has been expanding construction at its main nuclear facility since talks with Washington collapsed in 2019.
“Kim sees there is little to gain from dialogue if you are an adversary of the U.S.,” said Yang Uk, a military expert at Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a Seoul-based think tank. “Whether he engages or not, the primary goal will stay the same: to strengthen his nuclear program.”
Kim’s cement-factory visit contrasted sharply with how his late father, Kim Jong Il, reacted when the U.S. invaded Iraq more than two decades ago. Then, Kim Jong Il stayed out of the public eye for more than a month.
But Kim Jong Un has grown more confident as North Korea’s nuclear program has become more formidable. For decades, Pyongyang denied pursuit of a nuclear program until publicly admitting to its existence in 2002. The current leader has expanded the country’s arsenal most rapidly since succeeding his father in late 2011.
Pyongyang is now estimated to possess up to 50 nuclear warheads and enough fissile material to produce up to 40 more, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, a think tank. The stockpile’s size was estimated to be 30 to 40 warheads in SIPRI’s 2020 report. North Korea has continued to build and test intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.
A series of long-range missile launches and a nuclear test during the start of Trump’s first term helped spur a first-ever encounter with Kim in Singapore. The two leaders met three times in 2018 and 2019, though North Korea hasn’t formally engaged with the U.S. in more than six years.
More recently, Kim, who calls Washington’s push for his country to give up its nuclear weapons a “delusional obsession,” ignored Trump’s outreach last fall when the president visited neighboring South Korea.
“Under the signboard of the so-called “America first,” the U.S. is unhesitatingly resorting to aggression and use of force against sovereign states,” Kim said in a speech he gave to party officials after the Venezuela events but before the attack on Iran. North Korea’s “full-fledged” nuclear program would deter any war aggression, he added.
On Sunday, North Korea’s foreign ministry criticized the U.S. for the military strikes on Iran, which it said highlighted America’s “destructive role destroying global peace and stability.”
Meanwhile, the North Korean leader could potentially glean much from how U.S. forces are performing on the battlefield, security analysts say.
Iranian drone and missile strikes have stretched U.S. forces in the Middle East, potentially causing a shortage of munitions for America’s Patriot and Thaad missile defenses.
The U.S. has demonstrated that it can reach for a military option to decapitate the enemy’s leadership despite diplomatic negotiations, said John Everard, a former U.K. ambassador to North Korea.
“Kim Jong Un is studying this very carefully,” he said.