Trump fears that spying on other countries will damage his relationships with Putin and Kim: CNN

President Donald Trump has privately expressed a distaste for using covert agents to spy on other countries because he believes it undermines his ability to form strong relationships with other leaders, CNN reports.

The CNN report, which is based on interviews with "multiple senior officials who served under Trump," claims that the president "has privately said that foreign spies can damage relations with their host countries and undermine his personal relationships with their leaders."

The president also thinks that foreign agents used by American intelligence services are "selling out" their own countries and he "believes we shouldn't be doing that to each other," one source tells CNN.

Trump in the past has railed against intelligence agencies and once even said he was opposed to the CIA recruiting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's half-brother to work as an asset.

"I saw the information about the CIA with respect to his... half-brother and I would tell him that would not happen under my auspice, that’s for sure,” the president said this past June. “I wouldn’t let that happen under my auspices."