Trump to ‘take on’ North Korea
US will eliminate nuclear threat from Pyongyang if China refuses to co-operate, says president
THE US will take unilateral action to eliminate the North Korean nuclear threat if China does not help bring pressure to bear on Pyongyang, Donald Trump has warned.
Mr Trump, who will meet Xi Jinping, the president of China, for the first time on Thursday, said the US would go it alone if Beijing refuses to co-operate, but refused to say whether that implied taking military action.
“China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t,” the US president told the
Financial Times. “If they do, that will be very good for China, and if they don’t, it won’t be good for anyone.”
The conventional thinking is that China would have to take a lead role in imposing further sanctions on Pyongyang because of its economic leverage.
Mr Trump has been deeply critical of China in the past, especially over trade.
However, he said he hoped that would not stand in the way of a deal being reached at the summit with Mr Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “I have great respect for him. I have great respect for China. I would not be at all surprised if we did something that would be very dramatic and good for both countries and I hope so,” he added.
Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, also warned that America would “no longer take excuses from China”.
Mrs Haley said: “They need to show us how concerned they are … The only country that can stop North Korea is China, and they know that.”
She spoke as America took over the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council and said: “We’re going to move the ball and that’s what this is about.”
Concern has been mounting about the North Korean missile programme in the US for some years. Barack Oba-
ma’s administration identified North Korea as the top national security issue during the handover of power.
Some security officials believe Kim Jong-un’s regime may have a nucleararmed missile capable of hitting the United States within four years.
Gordon Chang, author of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the
World, said: “North Korea already has three missiles that can hit the lower 48 states. The only thing they can’t do is put a nuke to those launchers but they’ll be able to do that in four years.”
South Korean intelligence warned last week that another nuclear test by the North is imminent, suggesting Pyongyang may seek to “overshadow” the US-Chinese summit in Florida. South Korean government sources told the Korea Joongang Daily that preparations would be completed before the weekend.
Last month, North Korea fired a missile into the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula just as Mr Trump was hosting Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, at Mar-a-Lago.
Rah Jong-yil, a former head of South Korean intelligence, told The Daily Tel
egraph that China could tackle the issue “very easily by closing the border entirely and completely strangling all business and economic traffic”.
Last week John McCain, the US senator also urged China to act, saying only Beijing could control Kim Jong-un, whom he called “crazy fat kid”. But Ash Carter, the US defence secretary under Barack Obama, said he doubted Beijing would co-operate.
He said: “I’ve been working on the North Korea problem since 1994 and we have consistently asked Chinese leaders… They haven’t used that influence, and so it’s hard for me to be optimistic with that.”
Turning to Europe, Mr Trump said he believed that Brexit would be a “great deal” for the UK and also “really good” for the rest of the EU.
His view on whether other countries would leave appeared to have moderated. He said Europe had done a “better job” since the UK voted to leave.
DONALD TRUMP will welcome Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s strongman president, to the White House today amid criticism from human rights groups.
Unlike former US leader Barack Obama, Mr Trump has expressed admiration for the former general who came to power in a coup in 2013. In Septem- ber Mr Trump said: “He’s a fantastic guy. Took control of Egypt, and he really took control of it.”
The White House described the visit as a chance to “reboot the bilateral relationship” between the US and Egypt, which it called “one of the traditional pillars of stability in the Middle East”.
Mr Sisi was among the very first world leaders to congratulate Mr Trump, both after his election victory and his inauguration.
They spoke by phone on Jan 23, just days after the inauguration. The two men also met during the campaign in New York last September.
Mr Sisi led the military’s ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood’s president, Mohamed Morsi, after mass protests. He had strained relationships with Mr Obama and was never invited to the White House. Mr Sisi has also been spurned by others in the international community. Under his rule, Egypt has seen a spike in terror activity, mass trials and a crackdown on civil liberties and dissent. Human Rights Watch said the visit came at a time when human rights are at a “nadir in Egypt”.
The White House extolled the “close relationship” between the US and Egyptian military, and said the US was determined to support efforts to stabilise the Egyptian economy.
The US-Egypt alliance dates to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and since 1987 has included $1.3 billion (£1 billion) in annual military aid.
A White House spokesman said: “The president is excited to welcome the Egyptian president. His initial interactions… have already improved the tone of the relationship, and we hope [the] visit continues this momentum.”
An Egyptian court yesterday ruled that a judicial decision to block the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia was void. Government plans to transfer the uninhabited islands to Saudi Arabia triggered an outcry.