CHINA/MIKE POMPEO/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump on Friday [8-24-18] asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cancel an upcoming trip to North Korea, saying on Twitter that the United States has not made ‘sufficient progress’ on nuclear talks with the country in what appeared to be his first admission that the discussions have stalled. Trump partly blamed China for the difficulties, suggesting that Beijing is intervening with North Korea out of unhappiness with his ‘much tougher Trading stance’ and adding that the nuclear talks may not get back on track until U.S.-Chinese trade disputes are ‘resolved’ — a high bar…Trump tweets were just the latest in a series of out-of-left-field moves by the president when it comes to North Korea, whose nuclear arsenal is considered one of America’s top national security threats. The tweets also appeared to undermine his secretary of state, who said a day earlier that he’ll visit North Korea next week along with a newly named U.S. envoy tasked with tackling the nuclear talks. It is difficult to say how the North Koreans, or the Chinese, will react to what seems to be an increasingly common Trump pressure tactic of threatening to abandon diplomacy. In the run-up to his historic June summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, for instance, Trump called off the get-together only to reschedule it days later. He also used Twitter last year to tell then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson not to bother to pursue talks with Pyongyang.”
–Nahal Toosi, “Trump tells Pompeo to cancel North Korea visit,” Politico, August 24, 2018 3:32 pm