Trump advisers warn N. Korea to stop threats
Trump to speak at UN on Tuesday
SOMERSET, N.J. — President Donald Trump’s advisers said Sunday that the isolated North Korea would face destruction unless it shelves its weapons programs and bellicose threats.
Trump’s chief diplomat held out hope the North would return to the bargaining table, though the president’s envoy to the United Nations said the Security Council had “pretty much exhausted” all its options.
Kim Jong Un has pledged to continue the North’s programs, saying his country is nearing its goal of “equilibrium” in military force with the United States.
North Korea will be high on the agenda for world leaders this coming week at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly.
Trump is scheduled to address the world body on Tuesday.
National security adviser H.R. McMaster said that Kim is “going to have to give up his nuclear weapons because the president has said he’s not going to tolerate this regime threatening the United States and our citizens with a nuclear weapon.”
Asked if that meant Trump would launch a military strike, McMaster said “he’s been very clear about that, that all options are on the table.”
Some doubt Kim would ever agree to surrender his arsenal. He has threatened Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific, and has fired missiles over Japan, a U.S. ally. North Korea also recently tested its most powerful bomb.
The U.N. Security Council has voted unanimously twice in recent weeks to tighten economic sanctions on North Korea, including targeting shipments of oil and other fuel used in missile testing. U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, said North Korea was starting to “feel the pinch.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he was waiting for the North to express interest in “constructive, productive talks.”
“All they need to do to let us know they’re ready to talk is to just stop these tests, stop these provocative actions, and let’s lower the threat level and the rhetoric,” he said.
But Haley warned of a tougher U.S. response to future North Korean provocations, and said she would be happy to turn the matter over to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis “because he has plenty of military options.”
Mattis said after Kim tested a hydrogen bomb earlier this month that the U.S. would answer any threat from the North with a “massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.”
Trump has threatened to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea if the North continued with its threats. Haley said that wasn’t an empty threat from the president, but she declined to describe the president’s intentions.