Trump: ‘I thought this job would be easier’
It’s been a busy 100 days for Donald Trump, who is still fighting old battles, as well as new ones
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has admitted that he thought his new job “would be easier” in an interview to mark his his first 100 days in office.
Contemplating how it feels to be leading the free world, the former property mogul seemed wistful. “I loved my previous life. I had so many things going,” Mr Trump said. “This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”
Mr Trump was a political novice when elected last November. More than five months later, that victory remains on his mind: midway through discussion about Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, Mr Trump paused to hand out copies of a 2016 electoral map with the areas he won marked in red.
“Here, you can take that, that’s the final map of the numbers,” the President told Reuters. “It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us.”
His presidency has already faced obstacles that forced him to delay or abandon some campaign pledges. And he has been plunged into a burgeoning military face-off with North Korea.
“There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely,” Mr Trump said. “We’d love to solve things diplomatically but it’s very difficult.”
The US is trying to find a diplomatic solution to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to end the country’s nuclear weapons programme.
Hosting a UN Security Council meeting yesterday, Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, called on the global community to fully implement UN sanctions and suspend or downgrade diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.
“With each successive detonation and missile test North Korea pushes north-east Asia and the world closer to instability and broader conflict,” Mr Tillerson told the 15-member council. “The threat of a North Korean attack on Seoul or Tokyo is real.”
The US wants to convince China in particular to exercise the considerable economic leverage it has over North Korea as a trading partner and its main source of food and fuel aid.
China’s foreign minister said before the UN Security Council meeting that negotiations were the “only way out”.
“The use of force does not solve differences and will only lead to bigger disasters,” Wang Yi told the council.
When still president-elect, Mr Trump caused a rupture with China by taking a congratulatory phone call from the leader of Taiwan. But he has since improved relations, hosting Mr Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Mr Trump said in the interview that he would now consult Mr Xi before speaking with Taiwan. “He’s a friend of mine,” he said of Mr Xi. “I think he’s doing an amazing job as a leader, and I wouldn’t want to do anything that comes in the way of that.”
Mr Trump said he hoped Kim Jongun would behave in a “rational” way. “He’s 27 years old,” Mr Trump said. “His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want, but that is not easy, especially at that age [he is actually 33].”
Mr Trump later became the first President since Ronald Reagan to address the National Rifle Association (NRA). He told its conference in Atlanta, Georgia, last night that the NRA had “a true friend and champion in the White House.”
To applause, Mr Trump added he was still pressing ahead with the border wall between the US and Mexico, saying “don’t even think about it”.