Ahead of his trip, aides to Moon stressed the need to revive US-North Korea talks as soon as possible after a second summit between Trump and Kim collapsed in Hanoi on February 28.
He said he was open to discussing smaller steps, such as helping to ease North Korea's humanitarian problems, but that, in general, the US wants sanctions to remain. "I think that sanctions right now are at a level that's a fair level". But at this moment, we're talking about the big deal. The South Korean leader, who wants to see a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, has been shuttling between Washington and Pyongyang to resolve the nuclear standoff.
"Self-reliance and self-supporting national economy are the bedrock of the existence of our own style of socialism, the motive for its advancement and development and the eternal lifeline essential to the destiny of our revolution", Kim was quoted as saying by North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency.
At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stressed that "core" United Nations sanctions would have to remain until North Korea's complete denuclearization, but reiterated past statements that some easing might be possible if it took significant steps.
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Moon, for his part, said he does not view the Hanoi summit as a failure, but part of a longer "process" towards denuclearization.
Before his meeting with the South Korean President Moon Jae-in in Washington, US President Donald Trump says he is considering a potential third nuclear summit with North Korea's leader.
President Trump on Thursday hailed what he called great progress in his quest to get North Korea to abandon its nukes - but also suggested that he might be willing to accept a less sweeping deal.
But Moon's plan to unveil details of such projects on March 1, right after the Hanoi summit, was scrapped and he is under pressure from opponents on the right. The Trump administration, however, has maintained that it will not let up on the sanctions that have crippled North Korea's economy until it first relinquishes its nuclear weapons.
The Vietnam summit ended without Trump being able to extract major concessions from Kim on the country's nuclear arsenal or Kim getting the reduction he wanted in heavy economic sanctions brought to pressure him into cooperating. But there have been no public accounts of any progress since the Hanoi summit.
A third summit would follow on Trump's historic breakthrough previous year, when he met Kim in Singapore, and a follow-up this February in Hanoi that ended without progress in getting North Korea to give up nuclear weapons. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said the North Korean position, so far, has fallen short of that understanding.
Another North Korean official, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui, went on to threaten to end all communication with the "gangster-like" United States following Trump's decision to walk away from his meeting with Kim. She said her country might pull out of the nuclear negotiations with the United States, citing a lack of corresponding steps to some disarmament measures North Korea took previous year.
Trump continues to face criticism that he is out of his depth in talks with Kim and that sitting down with the dictator has yet to bring many benefits.
