Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who served as the 45th President of the U.S. from 2017 to 2021, raises his fist as he speaks during a campaign rally at the J.S. Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina, Monday. AFP-Yonhap

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is returning to the White House, leaving analysts to speculate whether he will resume direct diplomacy with North Korea as part of his second-term agenda.

During his time in office, Trump developed an unusually friendly relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He held two summits with Kim although he walked away from the Hanoi summit with "no deal" in 2019. In his campaign rallies, Trump has repeatedly boasted of his friendship with Kim, signaling his apparent desire to reengage with the North.

"I got along very well with him (Kim Jong-un). I got along with them and we stopped the missile launches from North Korea. Now North Korea is acting up again. When we get back, I get along with him. He'd like to see me back, too. I think he misses me," Trump said during his acceptance speech as the Republican nominee for the presidential election in July.

"Trump prefers a top-down style, interacting with leaders one-on-one," Andrew Yeo, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, said.

"Trump may be more inclined to engage with Kim given their past rapport. Trump's ego and desire to shape his own legacy may be a further motivating factor to engage Kim. However, high-stakes diplomacy with North Korea would be ill-advised if engagement is pursued at the cost of undermining regional alliance cohesion and deterrence."

Park Won-gon, professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University, explained that Republicans tend to rely heavily on the White House or the president when it comes to foreign policy. However, he said it appears unlikely that Trump will invest his time and energy for another summit with Kim.

"I don't think Trump would easily meet with Kim again because he has other foreign policy priorities in the Middle East and Ukraine. Despite the efforts made to pressure North Korea to denuclearize, very little was accomplished. Contrary to expectations, Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities have steadily increased," Park said.

Some say even if Trump wants to reengage with Kim, Kim may refuse to work with Trump as he is still reeling from the Hanoi summit trauma.

"Kim Jong-un was seriously offended by Trump walking out of the Hanoi summit. So Kim may refuse to work with Trump unless Trump offers major benefits to the North, which could get Trump in trouble with Congress," said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, a think tank.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, front, celebrates after a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, was launched from Pyongyang International Airport in this photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency, March 24. Yonhap

However, resuming direct diplomacy with North Korea comes with several risks.

Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Strategy at the Sejong Institute, said Trump might be more willing to sacrifice coordination with U.S. allies to make a deal with North Korea.

"The South Korea-U.S. alliance could be weakened under the second Trump term. Trump has proposed reducing U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula and suspending joint military exercises. South Korea may be excluded from any meaningful negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea," Cheong said.

However, he suggested that South Korea may pursue its own nuclear program. "Trump might allow Seoul to develop its own nuclear arms to strengthen South Korea's deterrence against North Korea," Cheong added.

Some expressed concerns over the prospect of Trump pursuing a deal with Kim that would effectively recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.

"Trump is too difficult to predict on something like acknowledging North Korea as a nuclear weapon state. I hope he does not," Bennett said.

Analysts said the U.S. would not give up on the denuclearization goal, although it no longer seems like a realistic, attainable policy objective.

"Trump will seek denuclearization as an ultimate end goal on North Korea policy, but given the unwillingness of Kim to denuclearize, and the difficulty in engaging Kim, my sense is Trump has decided to take a pragmatic approach and not focus on denuclearization as the center of North Korean policy," Yeo said.

He explained that the top priority for the next U.S. administration is halting, if not reversing, progress in the reclusive regime's nuclear and weapons programs.

"In the American political system, to admit a failure of denuclearizing North Korea is unacceptable. So the U.S. will likely leave denuclearization as a long-term objective. I think the more important issue is what the short-term U.S. objective will be, and I hope that will be some form of (a) freeze of at least components of the North Korean nuclear weapon program if not the entire program," Bennett said.

Park argued that the Hanoi "no deal" has pushed North Korea to bolster the country's nuclear capabilities. "After Trump walked out from the Hanoi summit, Kim concluded that it can resume disarmament talks with the U.S. only by ramping up its nuclear capabilities," he said.

Experts have remained cautious over whether North Korea will likely stage major provocations, such as a nuclear test, after the U.S. presidential election. North Korea on Thursday tested a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed Hwasong-19, a launch believed to have achieved the longest flight time yet for a North Korean missile.

"I think North Korea will conduct its nuclear test according to its timetable. Its relationship with China and Russia will be taken into consideration. China firmly opposes North Korea's nuclear tests and the North wouldn't want to place a burden on Russia," Cheong said.

"I think Kim Jong-un will likely continue and even escalate his hostility toward the U.S. and the ROK," Bennett said. ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.