How have North Korea's relations with South Korea, China, Russia and the US changed?

North Korea's relations have shifted with each of its four main partners and rivals: warmer with South Korea in 2018 and then declared impossible to reunify in 2023, closer to Russia since 2022, tied to China as its largest trading partner, and without formal diplomatic relations with the United States.

With South Korea, there was a thaw and then a break. In 2000 Kim Dae-jung became the first South Korean president to visit North Korea. Under President Moon Jae-in, relations warmed significantly, and in April 2018 the two countries signed the Panmunjom Declaration. Then, on 30 December 2023, Kim Jong Un declared peaceful reunification impossible, saying the two Koreas had become two separate ethnic nations.

China is the main economic partner: it is North Korea's largest trading partner, with more than 90 percent of North Korea's imports coming from China, and the two signed a mutual aid treaty in 1961. China supported or abstained from several UN Security Council sanctions resolutions on North Korea, leading to their approval. Kim Jong Un travelled to Beijing by special train on 2 September 2025, his first visit to China since 2019.

With Russia, ties grew from 2022. Russia reportedly purchased millions of shells and rockets from North Korea from September 2022, and in 2024 the two countries signed a treaty on a comprehensive strategic partnership, formalizing a defense treaty between them. With the US, relations have been hostile, with no formal diplomatic relations. President Trump met Kim Jong Un at the DMZ on 30 June 2019, but the Hanoi summit that February had ended without a signed agreement.