focuses

SEOUL, Aug. 26 (UPI) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over a key party meeting focused on economic development, state-run media reported Wednesday, but made no mention of renewed diplomatic outreach by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Kim led an enlarged meeting of the political bureau of the ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee on Tuesday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported. The meeting reviewed progress in the country’s “major economic sectors” and discussed implementation of policy goals for 2026, KCNA said.

Officials cited unspecified “unfavorable conditions and difficulties arising alongside ever-changing circumstances” and shortcomings in implementing economic plans laid out at February’s Ninth Party Congress.

Kim blamed the problems on the “immature operation and leadership of the economic guidance organs” and called on officials to “successfully conclude this year’s struggle without fail,” according to KCNA.

The party meeting comes as Trump has stepped up overtures to Kim, whom he said he expects to meet this year.

Trump last week abruptly ordered the United States and South Korea to curtail their annual Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise, citing its cost and saying the drills sent an “inappropriate and hostile” signal to Pyongyang.

Kim did not mention Trump or the military exercise in his remarks reported by KCNA. His sister, Kim Yo Jong, said last week that Pyongyang had “no interest” in the reduction of the drills.

“If the U.S. calculates that it can propagate its recent measure as the one of so-called good faith, they will not get desired answer,” she said.

The apparent lack of urgency from Pyongyang coincides with an improving economic picture after years of contraction and pandemic-era isolation.

North Korea’s economy grew by an estimated 3.5% in 2025, according to South Korea’s Bank of Korea, marking its third consecutive year of growth above 3%. The central bank cited expanded economic cooperation with Russia, increased trade with China and domestic policy projects as key factors, and said the North’s real GDP has surpassed its 2017 level, when United Nations sanctions were tightened.

The economic situation contrasts with Trump’s first term, when North Korea was under mounting international sanctions pressure while Trump pursued direct diplomacy with Kim. The two leaders held summits in Singapore and Hanoi and had a brief meeting at the Demilitarized Zone, but no nuclear deal was reached.

At February’s Ninth Party Congress, Kim hailed the previous five-year economic plan as a success and said the next would focus on stabilizing and consolidating the economy while pursuing “gradual and qualitative development” of industry and agriculture. He also called improving the economy and raising living standards “heavy and urgent historic tasks.”

Analysts have questioned whether Pyongyang has much incentive to return to negotiations on Washington’s terms. North Korea is less economically isolated than during Trump’s first term, and Kim has repeatedly declared the country’s growing nuclear arsenal off-limits to negotiations.

Bruce Klingner, senior fellow at the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, said Tuesday the chance of a meeting appeared “slim to none.”

“North Korea right now feels [it is] in the strongest position it’s been for quite some time,” Klingner said at a forum hosted by the Korea Economic Institute of America in Washington, pointing to Pyongyang’s economic ties with Russia and China as well as revenue from cryptocurrency theft.

“It’s getting about a billion dollars a year from cryptocurrency crime, so it doesn’t need the U.S. and sanctions relief as it did several years ago,” Klingner said. “So I think they’re just going to sit back … [saying] ‘we don’t close the door on engagement, but you need to offer more.'”

Trump on Tuesday reposted his directive to cut back the U.S.-South Korea joint drills, again highlighting his “very good relationship” with Kim. He also posted several photos of himself with the North Korean leader from their meetings in Singapore and at the DMZ.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s war against Iran is stretching the limits of U.S. aircraft carriers and leaving the western Pacific without one of the key American warships as China shows more signs of aggression.

The USS George Washington is departing the Pacific to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East, amid growing concerns about mental health and supply issues aboard the long-deployed carrier. The Lincoln has had its time at sea extended from its original May return date to support the war in Iran.

The lack of a U.S. carrier in the Pacific may be short-lived if the Navy deploys another in the next couple of months. But it shows how the open-ended operations with Iran are running some American sailors ragged, analysts say, while the Trump administration further retreats from the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on the Western Hemisphere.

“The administration says that the Pacific is supposed to be the most important behind the Western Hemisphere,” said Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Instead, the U.S. is “doing the exact opposite” of its previously expressed goal of pulling out of the Middle East.

American allies in the Pacific are unsettled over the unpredictability of the Trump administration, Poling said, while China “is quite happy with U.S. distraction, with the frustration of U.S. allies and partners.”

China may take advantage

Beijing sees the U.S. military presence in the region as a threat to China’s rise and an obstacle to its ambition to seize Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its own. But the United States has argued that the Pacific region is too important economically to lose.

No one expects China to invade Taiwan just because an American aircraft carrier has left the region. But the carrier’s absence gives the Chinese another opportunity to show its strength, said Bryan Clark, a former Navy submariner who is a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.

“They’re using this as part of the narrative to demonstrate to the Philippines, to Japan, to Indonesia and others that the U.S. is not the big dog in the western Pacific anymore,” Clark said. “They would just prefer that countries in the region decide that China is the bigger power and the U.S. is not able to guarantee their security anymore.”

China conducted naval exercises this week with Indonesia and recently has shown signs of aggression toward Japan and the Philippines, two key U.S. allies that also have territorial disputes with Beijing.

China carried out military drills this month near the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Both China and the Philippines have claims over the shoal. Last month, a Chinese guided-missile destroyer conducted a live-fire exercise off Japan’s southernmost island of Okinotori.

Adm. Frank Bradley, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, has been trying to reassure regional allies of Washington’s commitment. He was in Manila on Thursday, telling his Filipino counterparts that U.S. special operations forces are ready to step up joint exercises to strengthen the countries’ alliance. He also is expected to travel to Japan.

Evan Sankey, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute who focuses on U.S. policy toward China, said aircraft carriers provide psychological assurance to U.S. allies. The absence of carriers in the region, he said, “adds to the general sense that the U.S. is distracted by events in the Middle East.”

Trump has relied on aircraft carriers for military actions

Trump has relied heavily on aircraft carriers to support his numerous military operations during his second term. The USS Gerald R. Ford returned home in mid-May after an 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War, during which it supported the U.S. fight against Iran and the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The Ford had experienced a fire in a laundry space that forced the carrier to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs and left hundreds of sailors without places to sleep.

The USS Lincoln has been at sea 268 days as of Saturday, a record deployment without a port visit, as the Ford had. Democratic lawmakers and families of the sailors have been calling for investigations and greater visibility into conditions aboard the ship, which is preparing to return to its home port in San Diego.

Warships and their crews can handle only so much, said Robert Farley, who teaches national security and diplomacy at the University of Kentucky and often writes about aircraft carriers.

“People don’t get enough rest. It’s psychologically exhausting. And R&R is part of keeping the crew healthy,” Farley said. “Sometimes it’s framed as, ‘These people haven’t had a vacation.’ But we are dealing with well-known limits on the capacity of a crew to operate at top efficiency over time. And that just declines.”

Clark, of the Hudson Institute, said the squeeze on the nation’s aircraft carriers stems from the lack of preparation and planning for the Iran war.

“If we were going to mobilize to do this kind of conflict, and we anticipated it might go this long, we might have done some changes to the carrier schedule to make sure more would be available,” Clark said.

Clark said the Navy has 11 aircraft carriers and typically deploys two or three at a time. But it could soon deploy four if the USS Theodore Roosevelt leaves San Diego for the Middle East, allowing the Washington to return to Pacific.

But the massive warships will need maintenance, probably causing a bottleneck at the nation’s only two carrier shipyards.

“We’ll end up with a maintenance debt that needs to be paid for the next few years,” Clark said. “We’ll probably have less carrier presence than we’ve had in the previous years because carriers will be lined up to get into the shipyard.”

Role in modern warfare

Michael Swaine, a senior research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s East Asia Program, questions the future need for aircraft carriers as warfare rapidly changes.

Carriers can be more easily targeted with drones and missiles, particularly by an adversary such as China, Swaine said, while smaller ships and submarines can be as effective in striking targets as the fighter jets that launch off a carrier.

Top Navy officials have indicated a desire to move away from a heavy reliance on carriers. Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, told the Associated Press in February that he wants to convince commanders to use smaller, newer ships and other assets instead of consistently turning to huge aircraft carriers.

Finley and Tang write for the Associated Press.