Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had acknowledged
on Saturday, after meetings in Beijing with Chinese leaders, that the
Trump administration was keeping open direct channels of communications
with North Korea and probing the North's willingness to talk
President Donald Trump said Sunday
that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was "wasting his time" trying to
negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs,
raising speculation about whether Trump could be undermining efforts to
maintain channels of communication or somehow bolstering the diplomat's
hand in possible future talks.
It
was not immediately clear what prompted Trump's tweets, among a series
of weekend posts that ranged from hurricane recovery efforts in Puerto
Rico to NFL players' allegiance to the national anthem, and at whom they
were aimed: Tillerson, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, those pushing
for continued diplomacy, those favoring a military response to repeated
provocations.
Tillerson had
acknowledged on Saturday, after meetings in Beijing with Chinese
leaders, that the Trump administration was keeping open direct channels
of communications with North Korea and probing the North's willingness
to talk.
He provided no
elaboration about those channels or the substance of any discussions.
After he left China, his spokeswoman issued a statement saying that
North Korean officials "have shown no indication that they are
interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization."
And then Trump weighed in the next day with tweets that included his usual personal dig at Kim.
"I
told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is
wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man ... Save
your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!"
Trump
offered no further explanation, but last month he told the U.N. General
Assembly that if the U.S. is "forced to defend itself or its allies, we
will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea."
Supreme Court Opens Pivotal Term With Trump Nominee in Place
Later,
after Trump arrived at an international golf competition at a northern
New Jersey course, a new tweet appeared: "Being nice to Rocket Man
hasn't worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush
failed, and Obama failed. I won't fail."
To a senior Tillerson adviser, there was no ambiguity in Trump's earlier posts.
"The
President just sent a clear message to NK: show up at the diplomatic
table before the invitation gets cold," R.C. Hammond tweeted. "Message
to Rex? Try message to Pyongyang: Step up to the diplomatic table."
U.S.-North Korean communications are
long-standing. They include the two nations' U.N. missions, regular
exchanges between senior diplomats, and unofficial discussions between
North Korean officials and former U.S. officials. Diplomats say there
have been no new channels established recently, or any dramatic shift in
Trump administration policy.
Some
commentators seized on Trump's tweets as evidence that he was either
undermining Tillerson personally or his diplomacy, or both. Others said
the tweets might represent a "good cop-bad cop approach" to North Korea
that may or may not be misguided or bear fruit.
Still
others saw Trump's words as an attempt to give Tillerson diplomatic
cover and potentially strengthen his hand in persuading North Korea to
come to the table by declaring the effort a "waste of time" that the
U.S. could abandon at any time in favor of tightening sanctions even
further or a military response.
Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. "absolutely" should
step up diplomatic efforts. "We're moving to a place where we're going
to end up with a binary choice soon," Corker told NBC's "Meet the Press"
in an interview before Trump had tweeted.
"I
think Tillerson understands that every intelligence agency we have says
there's no amount of economic pressure you can put on North Korea to
get them to stop this program because they view this as their survival,"
Corker said.
He added: "If we don't ramp up the diplomatic side, it's possible that we end up cornered."
The main goal of the initial
contacts through the diplomatic back-channel between the Trump State
Department and North Korea's mission at the United Nations was the
freedom of several American citizens imprisoned in North Korea, although
U.S. officials have told The Associated Press there were broader
discussions about U.S.-North Korean relations.
Those contacts, however, have failed to reduce the deep mistrust between the adversaries.
North
Korea has in recent months tested long-range missiles that potentially
could reach the U.S., and on Sept. 3 conducted its largest nuclear test
explosion to date. The standoff has entered a new, more dangerous phase
since then as Kim and Trump have exchanged personal insults and threats
of war.
Comments
Post a Comment