INTERESTING: North Korea sees US economic handouts as threat.

The North’s perceived thirst for U.S. economic aid has consistently been the message coming from Trump and his senior officials. All Kim needs to do, they suggest, is commit to denuclearization and American entrepreneurs will be ready to unleash their miracles on the country’s sad-sack economy.

“I truly believe North Korea has brilliant potential and will be a great economic and financial nation one day,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Kim Jong Un agrees with me on this.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has laid Washington’s roadmap out in more detail.

“We can create conditions for real economic prosperity for the North Korean people that will rival that of the South,” he said earlier this month in a televised interview. “It won’t be U.S. taxpayers. It will be American knowhow, knowledge, entrepreneurs and risk-takers working alongside the North Korean people to create a robust economy for their people.”

Pompeo suggested Americans help to build out the North’s energy grid, develop its infrastructure and deliver the finest agricultural equipment and technology “so they can eat meat and have healthy lives.”

Kim has emphatically not agreed to any of that.

Under Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy, international sanctions on North Korea are stronger than ever before. Sanctions relief would open the door for more trade with China, South Korea and possibly Russia — partners North Korea trusts more than it trusts Washington — and potentially unlock access to global financial institutions.

The last thing Kim wants is to give up his nuclear weapons only to have his country overrun with American businessmen and entrepreneurs.

Even if he kept his nukes, Kim can’t afford to allow the political, economic, and (most importantly) cultural contamination hordes of Western businessmen would bring.