Chronicle Editor
Washington — President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes, raising speculation about whether Trump could be undermining efforts to maintain channels of communication or somehow bolstering the diplomat’s hand in possible future talks.
It was not immediately clear what prompted Trump’s tweets and at whom they were aimed: Tillerson, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, those pushing for continued diplomacy, those favouring a military response to repeated provocations.
Tillerson had acknowledged on Saturday, after meetings in Beijing with Chinese leaders, that the Trump administration was keeping open direct channels of communications with North Korea and probing the North’s willingness to talk.
He provided no elaboration about those channels or the substance of any discussions. After he left China, his spokesperson issued a statement saying that North Korean officials “have shown no indication that they are interested in or are ready for talks regarding denuclearisation.”
And then Trump weighed in the next day with tweets that included his usual personal dig at Kim.
“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man … Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”
Trump offered no further explanation, but last month he told the UN General Assembly that if the US is “forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea”.
Later, after Trump arrived at an international golf competition at a northern New Jersey course, a new tweet appeared: “Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail.”
To a senior Tillerson adviser, there was no ambiguity in Trump’s earlier posts.
“The President just sent a clear message to NK: show up at the diplomatic table before the invitation gets cold,” RC Hammond tweeted. “Message to Rex? Try message to Pyongyang: Step up to the diplomatic table.” — Al Jazeera
Online Reporter