If North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets U.S. President Donald Trump later this year, one of the most consequential decisions may be who accompanies him—especially if, as seems probable, it’s his daughter Kim Ju Ae.

Ju Ae, who is believed to be around 13 years old, has become a familiar presence since her first public appearance in state media at a missile launch in November 2022. She has since appeared at military parades, weapons tests, cultural events, and meetings with foreign visitors. In September 2025, Kim took her to Beijing—her first publicly confirmed trip abroad—where he attended China’s military parade and met Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Though Ju Ae remained at the North Korean Embassy while Kim attended the main diplomatic events, her presence helped solidify her position as Kim’s likely successor.

Trump said in August that he expected to meet Kim later this year, while South Korean intelligence assessed that a U.S.-North Korea summit could become possible at any time. With Washington still publicly calling for denuclearization and Pyongyang rejecting the possibility, renewed talks would test whether the two sides can negotiate limits on North Korea’s arsenal without agreeing on its eventual dismantlement.

A meeting with Trump would offer Kim another chance to present his daughter on the global stage, associating his potential heir with the prestige of a direct dealing with a U.S. president. It would also allow him to portray North Korea as a nuclear-armed state whose leader Washington must engage. Even without a breakthrough, the summit could help Kim normalize both his country’s nuclear status and the prospect of a fourth generation of family rule.

Trump and Kim have met three times: in Singapore in 2018, in Hanoi in 2019, and at the inter-Korean border later that year. Most discussions surrounding a possible fourth summit have focused on what Kim might seek at the negotiating table—sanctions relief, restrictions on U.S.-South Korean military exercises, or acceptance of North Korea’s continued possession of nuclear weapons. But Kim doesn’t need a major agreement for the meeting itself to be useful. For Pyongyang, symbolism is essential to summit diplomacy.

The Singapore summit made Kim the first North Korean leader to meet a sitting U.S. president. The following year, Trump became the first U.S. president to step into North Korean territory. Neither meeting resolved the nuclear dispute, and Hanoi ended without any agreement whatsoever. But the images were invaluable to Kim: the leader of a sanctioned and isolated state standing as an apparent equal beside the president of the United States.

That may matter even more now. Pyongyang insists that it will not give up its nuclear weapons. In June, its foreign ministry called denuclearization an “irreversibly finalized matter.” The United States has not accepted North Korea’s claim to nuclear-weapons-state status; the Trump administration continues to support complete denuclearization. But Trump has repeatedly called North Korea a “nuclear power” and in August spoke matter-of-factly about Kim possessing nuclear weapons.

That gap between formal U.S. policy and political reality creates an opportunity for North Korea. If Trump sits down with Kim while Pyongyang refuses to discuss giving up its arsenal, the distinction between recognizing North Korea as a nuclear state and negotiating with it as one could begin to blur. The practical question would become less about when North Korea will surrender its weapons and more about what can be negotiated while it retains them: missile testing, fissile material production, sanctions, military exercises, or crisis management.

That is much closer to the relationship Kim wants. For years, Pyongyang has tried to shift its nuclear arsenal from a problem the outside world expects to eliminate to a strategic fact it must manage. A presidential summit could advance that goal even if Washington never formally concedes the point.

Kim would also demonstrate again that he can deal directly with a U.S. president, lending him both domestic and international clout. Trump has long emphasized his personal relationship with Kim, including most recently in August. That leader-to-leader diplomacy suits Pyongyang: While working-level talks return quickly to verification, sanctions, missiles, and sequencing, summits shift attention toward the relationship between two leaders.

This is where Ju Ae becomes important. If Kim brings his daughter to a future summit, he could use the meeting to make a different kind of claim about the perpetuity of his dynastic regime.

There is still considerable uncertainty around Ju Ae’s future, as North Korea has not publicly confirmed her selection as Kim’s successor, and she is still a teenager. Like dynastic regimes of old, however, even a child can be wrapped up in the court’s power games. Yet little is publicly known about Kim’s other children, and whether a woman could ultimately lead one of the world’s most patriarchal-looking political systems remains an open question.

In terms of potential rivals, South Korean intelligence is still investigating whether Kim has an older son but have assessed that even if a hypothetical boy exists, he is not positioned to succeed. Succession rumors have also surrounded Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, but there is no evidence to suggest she would challenge Ju Ae.

Despite the uncertainty, it is increasingly difficult to dismiss Ju Ae’s public role as incidental, especially since she is the first child of a North Korean leader to openly accompany a parent on an official foreign visit since Kim Jong Il traveled with Kim Il Sung to Indonesia in 1965.

The fact that Ju Ae was shown arriving in Beijing with her father but kept away from the major public events made the trip look less like a diplomatic debut than a rehearsal. Ju Ae crossed one threshold by accompanying her father overseas, without being placed directly beside Xi or Putin. A summit with Trump could provide the next step. On such an occasion, Ju Ae would not need to sit at the negotiating table; visibility alone would be enough to demonstrate her political value. She might accompany Kim on arrival, appear at a reception, or briefly meet Trump before the leaders begin talks.

For Pyongyang, the photograph—Kim Jong Un beside his daughter as she is introduced to the president of the United States—may be the point, while for Trump, the introduction might amount to little more than a courtesy to the child of a foreign leader. North Korean propaganda, however, could tell a different story, by framing a polite greeting as a recognition of political importance from one of the world’s most powerful leaders. International news organizations would identify Ju Ae, analyze her appearance, and debate whether it represents another step toward succession. Millions of people who know little about North Korean internal politics would learn her name.

At home, the footage could position Kim’s daughter at the center of the regime’s narrative that Washington respects and accepts Pyongyang’s nuclear strength. It would also help civilians and party and military officials alike become accustomed to seeing Ju Ae as a potential future leader.

None of that would require Washington to say a word about succession, and that ambiguity is exactly what would make the moment useful for Kim. In North Korea, succession requires elite backing and control over the party, military, and security apparatus. Visibility, experience, and symbolic legitimacy help prepare the foundation for that authority.

Kim knows the risks of leaving that process too late—his own public rise had to be sped up after Kim Jong Il’s health deteriorated, leaving him only a short period of preparation before his father died in 2011. Ju Ae’s early exposure suggests a more gradual, public approach, especially given that Kim is still relatively young and firmly in control. Kim has plenty of time to acquaint his daughter with the institutions and relationships on which the regime depends.

A meeting with a U.S. president would give Ju Ae exposure to North Korea’s most important adversary and, more importantly, connect Kim’s two largest political projects: the nuclear state he has spent his rule building and the preservation of Kim family rule. By bringing Ju Ae into the picture, Kim would suggest that the political order built around those weapons will survive him.

A fourth Trump-Kim summit could thus look very different from the three that came before it, highlighting the realities of a dynastic, nuclear-armed North Korea that Washington is being asked to live with.

The United States should therefore judge a future summit by more than the agreement that emerges from the negotiating room. Trump may simply see Ju Ae as Kim’s child; Kim may be hoping the rest of the world sees who comes next.