Americans are due to go to the voting stations later this year as they decide they would like to sit in the White House for the next four years.
Reports have put Joe Biden, Democratic nominee and Trump’s main rival in the presidential race, ahead in the polls so far. It remains to be seen who will be leading the nation on November 4 when voting concludes.
But according to Zhang Liangui, professor of international strategic research at the Central Party School in China, talks between the US and North Korea will restart either way.
Zhang told the South China Morning Post (SCMP): “If Trump is re-elected, he will begin dealing with North Korea again, and he’ll have two options.”
The professor explained that one of these options would be to continue applying pressure on North Korea to give up developing its nuclear capabilities.
But the other might be to allow North Korea to retain some of its nuclear arsenal and only crack down on long-range missiles.
Zhang added that “the US has come to realise that it would be good for them to leave a nuclear-armed country right on China’s doorstep”, and claimed that both the Democrats and Republicans in the US have a similar stance on China.
As such, he thinks the result would be the same regardless of which party is in charge.
Zhang also pointed to the North’s relation with China, telling SCMP that it could potentially pose a security threat to China, and highlighted its unstable relationship with neighbouring South Korea.
Despite the professor’s claims, Joe Biden in January this year said that he would not meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un unless there were “preconditions” in place.
READ: June polls show Biden holding lead as Trump rating plummets
But although both leaders had initially agreed to work towards denuclearisation, nothing concrete ever came of the talks in terms of a nuclear deal.
And since then, talks have since stalled and relations appear to have darkened once again.
Indeed, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Son-gown questioned last month whether North Korea and the US needed to continue “holding hands”.
In other news, on Wednesday this week South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said he would like to see Trump and Kim meet again before the US election in November, according to a South Korean government official.
The official told reporters that Moon believed there was “a need for North Korea and the United States to try dialogue one more time before the US presidential election”.
They added that South Korea had reached out to the US with this sentiment in mind.