History. One of four such visits since 2018 was followed by a meeting with Donald Trump within eight weeks (Kim Jong Un, Beijing, January 2019, then Hanoi). After the other three there was no meeting in that time.
Hunch. Reuters reported on 23 October that US and South Korean officials see little chance of a Trump and Kim meeting this year.
The end-of-year market resolves on statements and the president's schedule on whitehouse.gov: YES if Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un meet in person on or before 31 December 2026, at a summit, in talks or on the sidelines of another event. A handshake without talks or a meeting of envoys does not count, and if whitehouse.gov does not open, reports in The Guardian and BBC News settle it.
We looked for cases where the leader of a country with no diplomatic ties to the US visited its main backer, after already meeting the US president in person. We found four such visits from 2018 to 2025: three trips by Kim Jong Un to Beijing and one by Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa to Turkey. Each time the US president was Donald Trump.