FOREIGN POLICY/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump said he didn’t think it was worth pursuing negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a day after his secretary of state revealed the U.S. was in direct contact with Pyongyang…
The president and his top diplomat have sent differing signals about North Korea before, as well as on other topics. In August, Mr. Trump warned of unleashing ‘fire and fury’ on North Korea, raising questions about potential nuclear war, amid worries that Pyongyang may target Guam. Mr. Tillerson later told reporters there was no new threat from North Korea and that Americans should ‘sleep well at night.’
Mr. Tillerson has been interested in pursuing lines of communication with North Korea, but that approach has been largely rejected by Mr. Trump, whose advisers have warned about the signal it would send after North Korea sent a pair of missiles over Japan this summer and tested what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb…
A State Department spokeswoman on Sunday played down any perception of disagreement.”
-Felicia Schwartz, “Trump Tells Tillerson Talking to North Korea Is A Waste of Time,” The Wall Street Journal online, Oct. 1, 2017 06:47pm