Trump says US will take action if China doesn't cooperate on North Korea
In an interview with the Financial Times a few days before a scheduled meeting with his Chinese counterpart, the US president said that if Beijing does not cooperate on North Korea, Washington itself is capable of "fully" addressing the current situation.
Mr. Trump's remarks came on April 4, four days before a planned meeting between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Trump has said that “China has deep influence over North Korea… and they will decide to help us with North Korea, or they will not.”
He then added that if Beijing cooperates, "it will be very good for China," but if Beijing refuses to cooperate, "it will be good for no one."
The US President says his country is capable of handling the situation "completely" on its own, without the help of the People's Republic of China.
Beijing is Pyongyang's main backer. North Korea is a nuclear-armed and ballistic-missile-armed country whose leader has threatened the United States and its neighbors with a "preemptive nuclear strike." The country has repeatedly conducted various missile tests in recent months, despite UN Security Council bans. Among the military goals Pyongyang is said to be currently pursuing are miniaturizing nuclear warheads to fit on missiles and developing long-range missiles capable of reaching the United States.
China, on the other hand, has expressed concern about the situation on the Korean Peninsula, describing it as a crisis. China's foreign minister recently called for North Korea to suspend its missile and nuclear activities as a first step to resolving the crisis, and for the US and South Korea to halt joint military exercises in response. Beijing says such a reciprocal process could bring the parties back to the negotiating table.
Washington, both during Barack Obama's presidency and now, has refused to halt its military exercises and activities with Japan or South Korea in order to convince North Korea to negotiate.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Donald Trump was asked what the US was planning to do about North Korea; Mr. Trump replied, "I'm not going to tell you. You know! I'm not like the US in the past (the US administration in the past) where we said where in the Middle East we were going to hit."
The upcoming meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi is expected to be dominated by tough negotiations and discussions, one of which is the issue of North Korea and the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. During the US election, Donald Trump, a Republican, had also repeatedly criticized Beijing's economic and financial policies towards the United States. The US president has also accused China of "exchange rate manipulation" and the value of the yuan against the dollar.
Source: Radio Farda
