“Help me, help you” begged Tom Cruise, playing the role of sports agent Jerry Maguire to his troubled but arrogant football star Cuba Gooding Jr. in the 1990s Hollywood movie. Now it is almost certain that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will have a new counterpart in his nuclear diplomacy after the 2020 U.S. election. Unlike Donald Trump, presumptive President-elect Joe Biden will take a more traditional and principled approach in nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang. Yet, Kim has a good reason to try to make a deal with his new American counterpart. To do so, Kim needs to help Biden to help him.  

Biden may not have such personal affections toward Kim considering he, as the vice president under Barack Obama, directly witnessed North Korea’s nuclear defiance attributing to four nuclear tests and other provocations. Kim may also have a good reason not to trust the Americans after his highly anticipated 2018 Hanoi summit with Trump went up in flames without a deal. After two years of frustration with Washington’s stonewalling on lifting economic sanctions—and with Trump gone, some expect Kim to go back to his old playbook of ratcheting up tensions on the peninsula with nuclear and missile tests in order to gain an upper hand in dealing with the incoming Biden administration.   

Yet, Kim may realize there is a good chance of making a nuclear deal with Biden this time. Most important of all, Biden is neither Trump nor Obama. Biden is more trustworthy than Trump—if indeed Kim’s negotiators can hammer out a nuclear deal, which will require more patience and precision, with their American counterpart. Also, Biden may be more flexible than Obama on terms and conditions of such a nuclear deal. After all, Biden considers the Iran nuclear deal as a pragmatic solution and the least of bad options and he could apply the same logic to North Korea’s case, too. Biden has clearly said that he will “empower his negotiators and jump-start” nuclear talks with Pyongyang.  

Second, unlike his early days of leadership succession during the Obama administration, Kim now has firmly established his domestic authority and nuclear capability. There is not much urgency and practical reason to accelerate the nuclear program as a key instrument to prove leadership and guarantee his regime’s survival. Third, Kim faces a very different South Korean counterpart, President Moon Jae-in, who is eager to officially end the Korean War and make a peace deal with Kim. Unlike his conservative predecessors, Moon is willing to help talks between Washington and Pyongyang as long as Kim can come to the table with a reasonable offer and assure to comply with the denuclearization pledge.  

Despite his success in building a nuclear deterrence capability, Kim’s domestic regime is facing dire economic conditions mired by the triple impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s massive floods, on the top of years-long U.S.-led economic sanctions. Speaking at a huge military parade last October to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, Kim shed tears as he issued a rare apology for his failure to guide the country through tumultuous times.

To escape from decades of poverty, Kim and his regime may desperately need outside help. Yet, Kim has to help Biden first by seriously engaging in nuclear talks with Washington instead of starting a new nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Seong-ho Sheen is a professor of International Security, Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS) at Seoul National University. He also works as director of International Security Strategy Program and International Security Center at the Institute of International Affairs at GSIS.

Image: Reuters