Trump’s ad-libbing on N Korea has risks

United States President Donald Trump’s threats against North Korea have highlighted as never before the tension between the president’s duties as chief executive and the role he often seems to prefer as the country’s highestprofile TV and internet commentator.

Despite Trump’s blustery warning of ‘‘fire and fury,’’ which he amplified further in comments to reporters yesterday, warships are not known to be moving toward the Korean peninsula, a tactic deliberately publicised during previous tense times to signal US resolve. The US has not reinforced troop levels in South Korea, as President Bill Clinton was about to do in 1994 when the two countries did come to the brink of war. US dependents have not been ordered out, nor have US nuclear weapons been sent back in to South Korea.

Instead, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Americans should ‘‘sleep well at night’’ and has pressed for talks, albeit with preconditions that the North Koreans so far have not been willing to meet.

Yesterday, even as Trump said his previous statements were perhaps ‘‘not tough enough,’’ Defence Secretary James Mattis emphasised diplomacy.

‘‘Do I have military options? Of course I do. That’s my responsibility,’’ Mattis told reporters as he flew to Seattle for meetings with tech industry officials.

‘‘But what we’re trying to do here is leave it loud and clear ... in the diplomatic arena: It is North Korea’s choice. Do you want a much better future – the entire world community is saying one thing – or do you want a much worse future?’’

The contrast may be a good cop/bad cop effort by the president and his Cabinet members. But the open confirmation by administration officials this week that Trump ad-libbed his ‘‘fire and fury’’ declaration without consulting his main advisers on the specific wording suggests more a sudden impulse than a carefully considered tactic.

The frequent disconnect between Trump’s words and actual policy has been visible for months. On major issues – healthcare, trade, taxes – as well as on more specific questions such as whether transgender Americans may serve in the military, Trump has made declarations that the rest of the administration and Congress have often ignored or sidetracked.

The current situation differs from those earlier examples because of the context and risk. In the fraught standoff with North Korea, where miscommunication or misunderstanding could trigger a devastating war, the question of how to react to Trump has taken on tremendous gravity.

‘‘Seriously, but not literally’’ is the phrase coined by one writer during the presidential campaign and adopted by some of Trump’s aides ever since.

For North Korea and the US, it’s been threats, sanctions and vitriol. Whatever happened to negotiations?

US officials can only guess how Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader, might interpret Trump’s words. Foreign governments typically have a hard time interpreting US politics and the freewheeling nature of American televisiondriven discourse. That’s even more true with a country like North Korea, whose leaders have minimal contact with Americans.

The North Koreans may be more focused on US-South Korean joint military exercises, the next round of which is scheduled to take place later this month. The exercises were planned long in advance, but this one will be carefully watched for signs of whether the US and its allies are trying to avoid making Pyongyang nervous or, to the contrary, seeking ways to increase the pressure on Kim’s government.

Both sides will also be waiting to see how other countries, especially China, enforce the new economic sanctions against North Korea that the United Nations Security Council approved on Saturday. Some foreign policy analysts believe Trump’s rhetoric might prompt China to crack down on North Korean trade in the hopes of pressuring Pyongyang into negotiating. Others think the president’s blunt language could have just the opposite effect.

Some officials have reacted to Trump’s words in ways that underline a remark Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s short-lived communications director, made shortly before he lost his job: ‘‘There are people inside the administration who think it is their job to save America from this president,’’ he said. – LA Times