Trump, who has traded insults and threats with Kim in recent weeks amid escalating tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, later tweeted that his White House predecessors, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, had all ”failed“ on North Korea by ”Being nice to Rocket Man,”
“So why would it work now?” he asked.
Kim succeeded his father, Kim Jong Il, as North Korean leader in 2011, during Obama’s administration. Previous presidents negotiated with Pyongyang but ultimately failed to prevent it from pressing ahead with its internationally condemned weapons programs.
Tillerson disclosed on Saturday that the United States was directly communicating with North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs but that Pyongyang had shown no interest in dialogue.
“Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!” Trump said.
Tillerson said during a trip to China that the United States had multiple direct channels of communication with Pyongyang, the first such disclosure from the Trump administration, and that it was probing North Korea to see whether it was interested in dialogue.
Tillerson expressed hope for reducing tensions with North Korea, which is fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the US mainland.
“We are probing, so stay tuned,” Tillerson told a small group of reporters. “We ask: ‘Would you like to talk?'” He said the United States had “a couple of, three channels open to Pyongyang.”
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