{"id":120747,"date":"2017-10-02T04:56:36","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T08:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=120747"},"modified":"2017-10-02T04:56:36","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T08:56:36","slug":"trump-dismisses-talking-to-north-korea-as-wasted-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/02\/trump-dismisses-talking-to-north-korea-as-wasted-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump dismisses talking to North Korea as wasted time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE<\/a>
FILE PHOTO: President Donald Trump says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is \u201cwasting his time\u201d 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. (Photo<\/a> by arctic_council\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-ND 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is \u201cwasting his time\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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 favouring a military response to repeated provocations.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201chave shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearization.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then Trump weighed in the next day with tweets that included his usual personal dig at Kim.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump offered no further explanation, but last month he told the U.N. General Assembly that if the U.S. is \u201cforced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, after Trump arrived at an international golf competition at a northern New Jersey course, a new tweet appeared: \u201cBeing 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

To a senior Tillerson adviser, there was no ambiguity in Trump’s earlier posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President just sent a clear message to NK: show up at the diplomatic table before the invitation gets cold,\u201d R.C. Hammond tweeted. \u201cMessage to Rex? Try message to Pyongyang: Step up to the diplomatic table.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cgood cop-bad cop approach\u201d to North Korea that may or may not be misguided or bear fruit.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cwaste of time\u201d that the U.S. could abandon at any time in favour of tightening sanctions even further or a military response.<\/p>\n

Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S. \u201cabsolutely\u201d should step up diplomatic efforts. \u201cWe’re moving to a place where we’re going to end up with a binary choice soon,\u201d Corker told NBC’s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d in an interview before Trump had tweeted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Corker said.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIf we don’t ramp up the diplomatic side, it’s possible that we end up cornered.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Those contacts, however, have failed to reduce the deep mistrust between the adversaries.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is \u201cwasting his time\u201d trying to negotiate with North …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":109365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24157,16],"tags":[24869,9869,1509,25702,6430],"class_list":["post-120747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-american-news","category-news","tag-dismisses","tag-donald-trump","tag-north-korea","tag-talk","tag-waste-of-time","mauthors-matthew-lee","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}