North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un declared Monday that his regime would permanently entrench itself as a nuclear-armed state and accused the United States of waging global “state terrorism and aggression,” in his most comprehensive attempt yet to foreclose any prospect of denuclearization while simultaneously angling for a confrontation with American power on the world stage. The address, delivered before the Supreme People’s Assembly in Pyongyang and reported by state media on Tuesday, represents the latest and most emphatic assertion of a strategic posture directly hostile to the security architecture the United States has maintained in the Indo-Pacific for seven decades.
According to the Associated Press, whose reporting was carried by NPR, NBC News, and other outlets, Kim told the assembled delegates that “the dignity of the nation, its national interest and its ultimate victory can only be guaranteed by the strongest of power.” He continued: “The government of our republic will continue to consolidate our absolutely irreversible status as a nuclear power and will aggressively wage a struggle against hostile forces to crush their provocations and schemes.” The language was unambiguous. The regime in Pyongyang is not merely maintaining a nuclear deterrent; it is declaring that deterrent permanent, non-negotiable, and offensive in character.
Kim’s accusation of American “state terrorism” — an apparent reference to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, according to the AP — was paired with a pledge that North Korea would play “a more forceful role in a united front against Washington amid rising anti-American sentiment.” The formulation is significant. Pyongyang is no longer content to posture as a besieged garrison state; it now explicitly seeks to position itself as a rallying point for adversaries of the United States worldwide, a pretension far exceeding the modest capabilities of an impoverished totalitarian state but one that nonetheless carries strategic implications when paired with its expanding relationship with Moscow and Beijing.
Yet for all the vitriol directed at the United States in general, Kim did not call out President Donald Trump by name, according to NBC News. He further stated that whether his adversaries “choose confrontation or peaceful coexistence is up to them, and we are prepared to respond to any choice.” The selective restraint mirrors the pattern established at last month’s Ninth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party, where Kim vilified Seoul in the harshest terms but left open a narrow aperture for dialogue with the Trump administration — provided Washington abandons its longstanding insistence on denuclearization as a precondition for talks. A White House official told Yonhap News Agency at the time of the party congress that “President Trump remains open to talking with Kim Jong Un without any preconditions.”
The speech expressed open pride in North Korea’s rapid expansion of nuclear weapons and missiles in recent years, which Kim characterized as the “right” choice to counter “hegemonic pursuits” by “gangsterlike” imperialists — standard Pyongyang lexicon for the United States and its allies, as NBC News noted. At the Workers’ Party Congress in February, the Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim called for developing new weapons systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles launchable from underwater and an expanded arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons targeting South Korea, according to reporting by Euronews.
South Korea bore the heaviest rhetorical weight. Kim designated it the “most hostile” state, a phrase now embedded in North Korean political discourse since Kim declared in 2024 that his regime would abandon its long-term goal of peaceful unification with the South. The Supreme People’s Assembly passed a revised constitution during its two-day session, though specific changes were largely undisclosed. According to reporting by the Daily Post and the Korean Central News Agency via Global Security, the only confirmed detail was the removal of the word “socialist” from the document’s official title — renaming it from the “Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” to simply the “Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” Whether the revisions formally codified the designation of South Korea as a permanent enemy, as had been widely anticipated by analysts, remained unconfirmed.
The constitutional change, while seemingly cosmetic, carries symbolic weight. The Daily NK reported earlier this year that North Korean media had begun dropping the word “socialist” from references to the constitution as part of the Kim regime’s effort to establish a distinct governing identity rooted in dynastic loyalty to the Kim family rather than Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy. This follows the 2009 removal of the word “communism” from the constitution under Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, according to the Library of Congress.
The Assembly session also saw the formal reappointment of Kim Jong Un as president of the State Affairs Commission — his third consecutive term — and the elevation of Jo Yong Won, one of Kim’s closest aides, to chairman of the SPA Standing Committee, replacing Choe Ryong Hae, according to the Anadolu Agency. Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, was relieved of her post as a member of the State Affairs Commission, though the nature of that move — whether a demotion or a reallocation of influence — remained unclear.
The broader strategic context is one of deepening alignment between Pyongyang and Moscow. Kim has sent thousands of troops and large quantities of military equipment to support Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to the Associated Press. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service estimated in February that some six thousand North Korean troops had been killed or wounded during their deployment, NPR reported. The Council on Foreign Relations noted that North Korea has provided Russia with ballistic missiles, long-range artillery, and millions of rounds of ammunition and artillery shells. In return, Pyongyang has received financial aid, military technology, and food and energy supplies — a transaction that, according to South Korean analysts at the Institute for National Security Strategy, may have generated between seven and fourteen billion dollars in revenue for the Kim regime, effectively undermining the core economic purpose of international sanctions.
For the United States, the strategic calculus on the Korean Peninsula has grown more dangerous. Kim has suspended all meaningful dialogue with Washington since the collapse of his second summit with Trump in Hanoi in 2019 over the question of sanctions relief, according to the AP. Analysts cited by the wire service suggest that Kim, facing the possibility of the Ukraine war winding down, may take a more measured approach toward Washington to preserve future dialogue — with the long-term objective of securing American recognition of North Korea’s nuclear status. But that measured approach, such as it is, amounts to a demand for American strategic surrender: the abandonment of denuclearization as a policy objective in exchange for the mere possibility of engagement with a regime that simultaneously brands the United States a terrorist state.
The threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program remains among the most acute challenges to American security interests in the Pacific. Pyongyang’s arsenal, once a diplomatic problem to be managed, is being institutionalized as a permanent feature of the regime’s identity — legally, constitutionally, and ideologically. The question confronting American policymakers is no longer whether Kim Jong Un will negotiate away his weapons. He has answered that question, loudly and repeatedly. The question is what the United States and its allies intend to do about a nuclear-armed adversary that has foreclosed diplomacy, deepened its alliance with Russia, and now openly aspires to lead a global coalition against American power.