United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed that North Korea’s potential to thrive would be “awesome” if it gets rid of its nuclear weapons. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are scheduled to meet in Vietnam’s Hanoi on Wednesday and Thursday.

“Vietnam is thriving like few places on earth,” Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday morning. “North Korea would be the same, and very quickly, if it would denuclearize. The potential is AWESOME, a great opportunity, like almost none other in history, for my friend Kim Jong-un.” The US president added that they would “find out soon”: presumably whether North Korea would or would not have great potential.

Trump also attacked the Democratic Party, claiming that it should stop talking about his efforts in North Korea, and ask itself why nothing was done during the eight years of Barack Obama rule.

Trump and Kim had met for the first time on June 12 in Singapore for a historic summit, following which Kim had committed to the “complete denuclearisation” of the Korean Peninsula.

While Trump arrived in the country aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, Kim travelled by train up to Dong Dang border station and was then driven to Hanoi.

On February 9, Trump had announced the dates of the second summit and said he was meeting Kim to “advance the cause of peace”.

Kim Jong-un, in his New Year address, claimed that Pyongyang has taken practical steps towards denuclearisation. If the US responds with practical and trustworthy measures, bilateral relations will “develop wonderfully”, he had said. However, he had added that North Korea will have to find a “new way to defend sovereignty” if Washington persists with imposing sanctions on them.