The Daily Telegraph

Come to table for a nuclear deal, Trump urges N Korea

The US president can be conciliato­ry to Kim as harsher sanctions are hitting. Iran should beware

- By Neil Connor in Beijing, Nicola Smith in Tapei and Ben Riley-smith in Washington

DONALD TRUMP, the US president, has called on North Korea to come to the negotiatin­g table and “make a deal” on its nuclear programme in a significan­t softening of tone.

Speaking in South Korea during his Asia tour, Mr Trump said he “hopes to God” that he never has to use military force against the regime.

Mr Trump appeared to predict the stand-off could be solved though talks, saying: “Ultimately it will all work out … It always works out.” It marks a stark difference from Mr Trump’s previous remarks, when he mocked the idea North Korea could be dealt with diplomatic­ally and promised “fire and fury” as tensions escalated.

His latest comments were made alongside Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president who was elected in May on a platform of more engagement with the North. Mr Trump has also issued a warning to China ahead of his visit today, pledging “very, very strong action” against countries who had been treating America “unfairly”.

Mr Trump had been planning a surprise visit to the Korean demilitari­sed zone (DMZ) early this morning but had to abandon the trip due to poor weather, it emerged last night.

Marine One flew most of the way from Seoul to the DMZ before turning back. Weather reports from near the DMZ showed misty conditions and visibility below one mile.

The president’s visit to Seoul, the South Korean capital, came at a time of heightened tension over North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s drive towards nuclear weapons. Mr Trump has dubbed him “rocket man” and said military action remains on the table to solve the dispute.

But Mr Trump toned down his rhetoric during a joint press conference with Mr Moon, expressing hope the crisis can be solved through diplomatic means. “It makes sense for North Korea to come to the table and make a deal that is good for the people of North Korea and for the world,” Mr Trump said.

On using the US military, he said: “We have many things happening that we hope... in fact I’ll go a step further, we hope to God we never have to use.” And on the likelihood of success, Mr Trump said: “I think we’re going to have lots of good answers for you over a period of time, and ultimately it will all work out … it always works out. It has to work out!”

The US president will arrive in Beijing today for the trickiest part of his trip and is expected to urge China to do more on North Korea.

The country has traditiona­lly been the North’s only diplomatic ally and a key trading partner. It suspended coal imports and enforced UN sanctions earlier this year after US pressure, but continues to supply most of its energy. “China’s trying very hard to solve the problem with North Korea,” Mr Trump said. “If we get China, if we get Russia … we think that things will happen and they could happen very quickly.”

Mr Trump has taken a tough stance on China’s trade protection­ism, but there are signs of pushback from the Chinese government. An editorial in China Daily, the state-run newspaper said: “Instead of criticisin­g his hosts, Trump should seek to promote cooperatio­n.” It read: “Trump’s lambasting of the US’S trade partners, and his vows that under his administra­tion the theft of American prosperity will end, play well with the crowd… and no doubt they will serve to distract attention from his troubles at home. But they do nothing to help revitalise the US economy.”

Mr Trump was served a fermented soy sauce during his South Korea trip which was 360 years old – a century older than America itself.

If North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un believes he can take advantage of the more conciliato­ry tone Donald Trump has adopted during his Asian tour over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, then he is in danger of making a terrible error.

Mr Trump’s many critics like to portray him as a mercurial and inconsiste­nt character, someone who is happy to generate lots of noise in the Twittersph­ere without having any real desire to follow through on his threats. They will therefore interpret Mr Trump’s offer to the North Koreans yesterday to embrace diplomacy to resolve the nuclear crisis as confirmati­on that his administra­tion is backtracki­ng on his threat to “totally destroy” North Korea by military force.

The idea that the president is somehow an emperor with no clothes, however, does Mr Trump an injustice and, so far as the North Koreans are concerned, would be a grave miscalcula­tion about the president’s willingnes­s to act.

For the reason Mr Trump finds himself able to take a softer line with Pyongyang is that the measures he has employed already to punish Mr Kim for his reckless ballistic missile tests are now starting to have a serious impact on the North Korean economy.

Sales of seafood, which are essential for the country’s economic survival, have all but stopped, while the UN’S wide-ranging ban on exports of coal, iron ore and lead has cut North Korea’s export revenues by one third. As Charles Hay, the British ambassador to South Korea, remarked in an interview with the BBC yesterday: “The sands are running out for Kim Jong-un.”

Far from backing down in his confrontat­ion with Pyongyang, Mr Trump’s approach is paying dividends, to the extent that he now feels able to offer Mr Kim a way out of the impasse that does not involve the US military annihilati­ng his country.

Indeed, while Mr Trump has struggled to make progress on his domestic agenda on issues like reforming Obamacare, the president’s forthright approach to tackling America’s enemies is making its mark.

The defeat of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) in Mosul and Raqqa, for example, was greatly expedited by Mr Trump’s decision to change the rules of engagement in a way that enabled coalition forces to prosecute the campaign more effectivel­y. The result is that Isil’s self-proclaimed Caliphate has now been completely destroyed.

Mr Trump’s no-nonsense approach, moreover, sends a clear message to America’s foes of what they can expect if they attempt to threaten Washington or its allies.

If North Korea’s dictator is learning, to his cost, the price of needlessly antagonisi­ng the US president, then other countries, like Iran, that are hostile to the United States need to watch their step if they are not to suffer a similar fate.

It is nearly 15 years since former US president George W Bush coined the phrase “axis of evil” to describe North Korea, Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Saddam is long gone, and politician­s today rarely use such loaded language when talking about rogue states.

But I suspect Mr Trump entertains no such qualms and that, just as he sees Mr Kim as – to use Tony Blair’s phrase – a real and present threat to world peace, he also takes a dim view of the ayatollahs’ continued acts of aggression against American allies and interests.

It is not as though the Iranians haven’t been given fair warning of the likely consequenc­es of continuing to provoke Mr Trump’s ire. The president made his views on Iran’s regime perfectly clear last month when he refused to certify the nuclear deal, and put Tehran on notice that it faced a fresh round of sanctions if it did not clean up its act.

Instead, in the past few days, Tehran has demonstrat­ed that it has no intention of changing tack and that, on the contrary, it has every intention of maintainin­g the policies that have put it on a new collision course with Washington.

The resignatio­n of Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri at the weekend, for example, was in protest at the growing threat posed by Hizbollah, the Iranianbac­ked Shia militia that is accused of assassinat­ing his father Rafiq in 2005. Further evidence of Iran’s destructiv­e influence in the Middle East was provided when Tehran was accused of supplying the missile fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen at the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh.

Then there is the plight of Nazanin Zaghari-ratcliffe, the British-iranian woman who has been jailed in Tehran on trumped-up spying charges.

These are not the actions of a country that seeks better relations with the United States and its allies. They are a demonstrat­ion that Iran, just like its North Korean partner in the “axis of evil”, wants to maintain its aggressive posture towards the West. If so, then Tehran should start preparing to suffer the same fate as North Korea for provoking Mr Trump’s wrath.

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 ??  ?? Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, and his wife Kim Jung-sook leave the presidenti­al Blue House in Seoul yesterday. Left, a meal served at the state dinner held for the US president
Melania Trump, Donald Trump, Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, and his wife Kim Jung-sook leave the presidenti­al Blue House in Seoul yesterday. Left, a meal served at the state dinner held for the US president
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