WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said diplomatic efforts to resolve the North Korean crisis “will continue until the first bomb drops.”
The announcement came despite President Donald Trump's tweets a couple of weeks ago that his top envoy was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with “Little Rocket Man,” a derisive nickname Trump gave to the nuclear-armed nation's leader Kim Jong Un.
“I think he really wants to make clear to Kim Jong Un and this regime in North Korea that he has military preparations ready and he has these military options. And we've spent a significant amount of time perfecting them,” Tillerson said on CNN's “State of the Union” on Sunday. “But be clear: the president has also made it clear to me that he wants this issue to be resolved diplomatically. He is not seeking war.”
Recent mixed messages from top US government leaders have raised concerns about the possibility of miscalculation amid increasingly combative exchanges of words between Trump and the North Korean leader.
Trump told the UN General Assembly last month that if the US “is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to completely destroy North Korea.” Trump also tweeted that Korea's leadership “will not last long” if it continues its provocations. The statement led North Korea's foreign minister to claim that Trump had “declared war on our country.”
During a recent trip to Beijing, Tillerson acknowledged that the Trump administration is keeping direct lines of communication open with North Korea and testing North Korea's readiness to negotiate. He did not provide any details about these channels or the substance of any discussions.
Shortly after, Trump took to Twitter, saying he told “our wonderful Secretary of State that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man… Save your energy Rex, we will do what needs to be done!” Trump gave no further explanation but said all military options to address North Korea's nuclear and missile programs were on the table.
Analysts are speculating whether the president and his top diplomat were playing “good cop, bad cop” with North Korea and how China might interpret Washington's confusing signals. Beijing is the North's main trading partner, and the US is counting on China to enforce UN sanctions.
“Rest assured that the Chinese are not in any way confused about what American policy is toward North Korea or what our actions and efforts are aimed at,” Tillerson said.
Asked whether Trump's tweets were undermining Tillerson, the secretary of state responded: “I think the president is trying to motivate action on the part of a number of people, particularly the regime in North Korea. I think he really wants to make it clear to Kim Jong Un and that regime in North Korea that he has military preparations ready, and he has these military options on the table, and we've spent a lot of time on their improvement.”
He added that Trump “has made it clear to me that I must continue my diplomatic efforts, and I have told others that these diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops.”
North Korea has launched missiles that could potentially hit the US mainland and recently carried out the largest underground nuclear explosion in history. He threatens to detonate another nuclear bomb over the Pacific Ocean.
