SEOUL: North Korea’s state media on Thursday remained silent about former U.S. President Donald Trump’s election victory to secure a second presidential term. The Republican flag-bearer won Tuesday’s presidential election, becoming the second U.S. president ever to serve two nonconsecutive terms, after winning major battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina.
According to Yonhap News Agency, major North Korean news outlets, such as the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the Rodong Sinmun daily newspaper, and the Korean Central Television had not reported on Trump’s election victory as of 7 a.m. Thursday. North Korea has previously covered U.S. presidential election results indirectly, typically sometime after the outcome is announced. For both of Barack Obama’s presidential victories, the Rodong Sinmun, North Korea’s main newspaper targeting the domestic audience, published the results four days after the official announcement.
When Trump first won the presidency in 2016, North
Korea indirectly reported the result 11 days after Election Day through a Rodong Sinmun commentary that criticized then South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s congratulatory message to Trump. In contrast, when Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020, North Korea remained silent for over two months, only indirectly mentioning it through the propaganda outlet DPRK Today after his official inauguration.
Analysts speculate North Korea may go out of its way this time to send a personal letter or congratulatory message directly to Trump, given that the two leaders exchanged messages in the past. However, North Korea may choose not to raise public expectations for improved relations with the U.S. Following Trump’s nomination acceptance speech in July, in which he highlighted his friendship with the North Korean leader, the KCNA reported that North Korea does not care about who wins, saying, “Even if any administration takes office in the U.S., the political climate … does not change.”
Trump and Kim held summit talk
s in Singapore in 2018 and Vietnam in 2019. The Hanoi summit ended without a deal due to a failure to narrow differences over the scope of North Korea’s denuclearization and sanctions relief by Washington.