Nuclear tensions rise again Trump uses first veto in row over wall money
US President Donald Trump’s claims that reduced tensions with North Korea resulting from his personal diplomacy with its leader Kim Jong Un demonstrated progress toward a nuclear deal were undercut yesterday as Pyongyang lashed out at the administration’s ‘‘gangster-like’’ tactics and blamed his top aides for a failed summit last month.
In the latest sign of mounting hostilities since disarmament talks collapsed in Hanoi, a top North Korean official also declared that leader Kim was weighing cutting off bilateral dialogue with the US.
The threat came amid evidence that the regime recently rebuilt a space rocket and missile launch site, and raised doubts about the future of the negotiations.
Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told a news conference in Pyongyang yesterday that the two leaders maintained a good relationship after the Hanoi summit ended without a deal. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo played down tensions, responding that he expected that the two sides would continue ‘‘very professional conversations’’.
Yet behind the scenes, Trump aides have struggled to articulate a path forward to bridge the wide gaps between Washington’s demands that the North fully dismantle its nuclear weapons programme, and Pyongyang’s insistence that the US ease punishing economic sanctions in exchange for incremental steps.
During a private briefing in Washington this week, one White House official told foreign policy analysts that Trump’s talks with Kim last month had convinced the president that the regime was unwilling to surrender its nuclear programme, said Sue Mi Terry, a Korea expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies who attended the briefing.
That realisation throws into question Trump’s strategy to counter the precedent of past US administrations, which rejected presidential-level talks, and engage in direct negotiations with Kim – although without a clear road map for how a denuclearisation process would work.
Since their first summit in Singapore last June, there has been little progress among working-level negotiators, and the Hanoi summit failed to punch through the fundamental disagreements.
Choe blamed Pompeo and Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton, both of whom accompanied Trump to Hanoi, for creating an atmosphere of ‘‘hostility and mistrust’’, but she did not directly criticise Trump.
Bolton called her characterisation of the Hanoi talks ‘‘inaccurate’’. A White House spokesman declined to comment.
Kim’s efforts to woo Trump, which have included sending him a series of flattering personal letters, could have diminishing returns given the failure in Hanoi.
North Korea special envoy Stephen Biegun, who has been frustrated in working-level meetings with his counterparts in Pyongyang, said the administration would not lift sanctions until the North completely dismantled its nuclear and ballistic missiles.
Asked whether Kim might resume missile testing after a 16-month moratorium, Biegun replied: ‘‘The short answer is, we don’t know.’’
Trump said this month he would be ‘‘very disappointed’’ if the North followed through with a missile test, after satellite images showed work to rebuild the Sohae rocket launch facility.
At a news conference in Hanoi, Trump said several times that Kim had promised him that he would maintain the testing freeze, which the president has cited as evidence that his negotiations have made progress.
A test ‘‘certainly closes the book on diplomacy’’, said Bruce Klingner, a former US intelligence official who is now a Northeast Asia analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. ‘‘I think the US is trying to figure out where to go. The president is now less optimistic.’’
After returning from Hanoi, Trump aides sought to shore up political support. At one briefing, according to one person in the room who requested anonymity, Biegun told congressional staffers that the North Koreans were not creative in their thinking and did not appear to have a ‘‘plan B’’ after the US rejected a proposal to lift most sanctions in return for the closure of some of the Yongbyon nuclear site, the country’s main production site for fissile materials.
Former US officials who have negotiated with the North Koreans said the tougher rhetoric since the summit was evidence that the engagement process was showing signs of collapsing.
‘‘I worry this could all get worse before it gets better,’’ said Victor Cha, who served as a highranking Asia policy official in the George W Bush administration. ‘‘There do not seem to be any tangible diplomatic pieces to pick up after Hanoi. They’ve both taken extreme positions.’’ US President Donald Trump issued the first veto of his presidency yesterday to secure federal money for a border wall that he promised as a candidate and considers a crucial priority for his reelection, capping a week of confrontation with both political parties.
‘‘Congress has the freedom to pass this resolution, and I have the duty to veto it,’’ Trump said during an Oval Office event with supportive sheriffs and families of Americans killed by undocumented immigrants.
Rebuffed by Congress in his demands for billions of dollars for the wall, Trump declared a national emergency at the Mexican border last month, a move that would allow him to circumvent the will of lawmakers and spend billions on border barriers.
Congress backed a resolution of disapproval, with the Senate voting 59-to-41 on Friday for the measure. Twelve Republicans defied Trump and joined Democrats in voting to pass the legislation.
The rare rebuke from members of his own party was symbolically important, but Congress does not have the votes to overturn Trump’s veto.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, immediately announced a March 26 vote to try, saying: ‘‘House Republicans will have to choose between their partisan hypocrisy and their sacred oath to support and defend the Constitution.’’
Pelosi called the president’s wall money manoeuvre a ‘‘lawless power grab’’.
Most congressional Republicans who defected did so as a protest against the president’s methods and the possible precedent of executive overreach.
Trump said yesterday he understood that objection, and maintained that he didn’t twist arms, although he had warned potential Republican defectors about putting themselves in ‘‘great jeopardy’’.
‘‘I think the US is trying to figure out where to go. The president is now less optimistic.’’ Bruce Klingner, Northeast Asia analyst, Heritage Foundation