Pyongyang lambastes Trump as too much like Obama

TOKYO

— North Korea has a criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump he probably wasn't expecting: He's too much like Barack Obama.

North Korea's state media, which regularly vilified Obama in the strongest terms, had been slow to do the same with the Trump administration, possibly so that officials in Pyongyang could figure out what direction Trump will likely take and what new policies he may pursue.

But his top diplomat's recent trip to Asia, which featured some pretty tough talk, appears to have loosened their lips.

In North Korea's first official comments since new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's swing through the region, a Foreign Ministry spokesman seized on the former oil executive's blunt assessment that Obama's strategy needs to be replaced and U.S. efforts to get North Korea to denuclearize over the past 20 years have been a fai l ur e.

The spokesman then slammed Trump for adopting the same policies, particularly regarding tougher economic sanctions, nevertheless.

"Tillerson admitted the failure of the U.S. efforts to denuclearize the DPRK for 20 years and end of Obama's policy of 'strategic patience' during his recent tour," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in the dispatch that ran late Monday, quoting the unnamed Foreign Ministry official. "Now Tillerson is repeating what Obama touted ... until he left the White House."

North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK, hasn't exactly been sitting quietly by as Trump gets settled in.