As tensions flare, Trump golfs in Florida
UNITED STATES: Just hours before North Korea fired a failed ballistic missile, President Donald Trump spent his morning enjoying the blue, breezy weather on Florida’s eastern coast on Sunday, zipping around the greens of his private golf club.
The day before, the president also passed the morning playing golf at Trump International Golf Club, according to someone who saw him on the course.
And in addressing North Korea’s latest provocation, Trump - who spent at least a portion of both evenings greeting guests at his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida - deferred to his Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general.
‘‘The president and his military team are aware of North Korea’s most recent unsuccessful missile launch,’’ Mattis said in a twosentence, emailed statement. ‘‘The president has no further comment.’’
On the question of North Korea, one of the United States’s most immediate geopolitical threats, Trump was uncharacteristically quiet over the weekend, instead leaving it to his team of deputies, as well as Vice President Mike Pence, to articulate the administration’s policy toward the totali- tarian regime. In addition to Mattis’ terse statement, the vice president - who arrived in Seoul for a 10-day trip through Asia shortly after the failed launch - briefly addressed North Korea’s latest action at a dinner of US troops and their family members, and a White House foreign policy adviser on the trip briefed reporters travelling with Pence, as well.
‘‘This morning’s provocation from the north is just the latest reminder of the risks each one of you face each and every day in the defence of the freedom of the people of South Korea and the defence of America in this part of the world,’’ Pence said. ‘‘Your willingness to step forward, to serve, to stand firm without fear, inspires.’’
Mattis’ statement, as well as Trump’s lack of comment, stood in stark contrast to the president’s behaviour just two months ago, when North Korea claimed in midFebruary that it had successfully tested a new type of missile with nuclear capabilities.
In response then, Trump - who was again at Mar-a-Lago for a visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - scrambled his travelling press corps to deliver an inperson statement that evening, after he and his aides seemed to pore over the latest intelligence in full view of his club members.
But as tensions mounted earlier in the week between the United States and North Korea - which is forging ahead with its nuclear weapons programme and eager to build a missile that can reach the United States - the president departed the White House on Thursday (local time) for what he seemed to hope would be a quiet Easter weekend holiday.
He brought with him only three junior staffers and K.T. McFarland, a deputy national security adviser who was recently demoted and offered a posting as ambassador to Singapore as a concession.
The president was in touch, however, with Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Mattis, with whom he spoke several times between Thursday and Saturday, as the situation unfolded, according to a senior administration official.
But in the hours after the failed launch, Trump - who previously has said the United States is willing to intervene on its own if others in the region don’t step up - allowed his advisers, including McFarland and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, to outline the administration’s approach on the Sunday shows.
McMaster and McFarland offered a notable contrast to Trump’s previously bellicose statements. Both seemed to be calling for patience and tamping down the possibility of imminent military intervention.
McMaster, appearing on ABC’s This Week, said that the United States is exploring ‘‘a range of options’’ to respond to an increasingly provocative North Korea but said the administration would like ‘‘to take action short of armed conflict, so we can avoid the worst.’’
McFarland, meanwhile, downplayed the significance of yet another failed missile launch, saying the early test was ‘‘not a surprise.’’
‘‘Even in the last year, President Kim of North Korea has launched over 30 missiles,’’ McFarland said. ‘‘Most of them have failed. So it didn’t come as a surprise to us. We were expecting something surrounding the birthday of his grandfather.’’
Saturday was the anniversary of the 1912 birth of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founder and the current leader’s grandfather.
Both McMaster and McFarland also talked up the role China could play in bringing North Korea to heel - and urged some patience on that front. About 80 per cent of North Korea’s trade is with neighbouring China, giving the country a good deal of leverage, they suggested.
McFarland said that an array of strategies were discussed when Chinese President Xi Jinping recently visited Trump at Mara-Lago.
‘‘Well, in this case, I think we should give the Chinese president some opportunities and some time, as well as pursuing the economic and diplomatic pressures that we have and that our allies have that we can bring to bear on North Korea.’’ - Washington Post