U.S. offers range of options for N. Korea
Tillerson urges economic sanctions, while China stresses negotiations
UNITED NATIONS — The United States and China offered starkly different strategies Friday for addressing North Korea’s escalating nuclear threat as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat demanded full enforcement of economic sanctions on Pyongyang and urged new penalties.
Stepping back from suggestions of U.S. military action, he even offered aid to North Korea if it ends its nuclear weapons program.
The range of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s suggestions, which over a span of 24 hours also included restarting negotiations, reflected America’s failure to halt North Korea’s nuclear advances despite decades of U.S.-led sanctions, military threats and rounds of diplomatic engagement.
As the North approaches the capability to hit the U.S. mainland with a nuclear-tipped missile, the Trump administration feels it is running out of time.
Chairing a ministerial meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Friday, Tillerson declared that “failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences.”
Tillerson said all options “must remain the table,” while emphasizing the need for diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea.
His ideas included a ban on North Korean coal imports and preventing its overseas guest laborers, a critical source of government revenue, from sending money home.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China would adhere to past U.N. resolutions and wants a denuclearized peninsula, but spelled out no further punitive steps his government might consider, despite Tillerson’s assertions in an interview hours ahead of the council meeting that Beijing would impose sanctions of its own if North Korea conducts another nuclear test.
“The key to resolving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side,” Wang said, stressing the need for negotiations.