USA ‘strategic patience’ with North Korea has ended: Tillerson

Speaking in Tokyo at the start of a trip to Asia focused on the threat from North Korea, Tillerson defended the cuts as a necessary correction to a “historically high” budget that had grown to address conflicts overseas in which the United States was engaged, as well as disaster aid.

Tillerson is the latest in a parade of senior US officials to have their photos taken at the border.

And given the widespread public image of Trump as a volatile leader, Pyongyang might believe Trump could actually be thinking of using military force, Watanabe said. And it’s an unacceptable demand for a regime that has put in decades of effort to build nuclear bombs and conduct five nuclear tests, and now insists that it be treated as a legitimate nuclear power.

USA officials have been spooked by North Korea’s accelerating progress towards building an intercontinental ballistic missile that could threaten United States mainland cities.

Tillerson repeated Friday the USA had spent too much money on a failed North Korea policy.

Tillerson however is also expected to firm up a trip by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States next month for his first summit with Trump, and could choose to tone down any differences between the world’s largest economies, at least for now. China has done little to help!”he tweeted on Friday morning”. The North conducted two nuclear test explosions and 24 ballistic missile tests a year ago. “In the face of this ever-escalating threat, it is clear that a different approach is required”, he said.

Tillerson is the latest in a parade of senior USA officials to have their photos taken at the border. It probably would; but, given how closed North Korea is, bringing about such an outcome remains more wish than serious policy.

I worry an additional risk of Tillerson’s poor tone at the top is the trickle-down effect on government access for journalists covering all levels of government nationwide.

It comes just three days after the North’s state news agency KCNA warned the U.S. of “merciless” attacks if America’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier “USS Carl Vinson”, which arrived in South Korea to take part in annual drills, infringed on its sovereignty during the exercises. “We look to China to fulfill its obligations and fully implement the sanctions called for in the United Nations resolutions”.

“(The U.S.) can’t take a decisive attitude toward North Korea unless the Japan-South Korean relationship is being well managed”, Watanabe said.

The former ExxonMobil CEO’s two-day visit will focus on measures to build bilateral relations and fend off emerging threats from North Korea.

“We ask China to refrain from such actions”, he said.

Tillerson traveled to the Demilitarized Zone after landing at Osan Air Base on the second part of his three-nation Asia tour, which began in Japan and ends this weekend in China.

In Beijing, a North Korean diplomat said Thursday that Pyongyang must act in self-defence against the drills, which he said have brought the region to the brink of nuclear war.

On Friday, during a visit to South Korea, Tillerson took his comments even further.

“About 28 million people in greater Seoul are within range of 40,000 North Korean artillery tubes and thousands of Scud and Nodong missiles”.

The Atlantic recently spoke to one unnamed State Department officer who said, in reference to White House officials, “They really want to blow this place up….” The North conducted two nuclear test explosions and 24 ballistic missile tests previous year.

Tillerson also criticized China’s economic retaliation against South Korea for Seoul’s joint decision to deploy the USA missile defense system THAAD on the peninsula.

But the exercise was held on the premise that a North Korean missile had landed in Japan’s territorial waters, a Cabinet Secretariat official said. But he offered no details about what would comprise the “different approach” to North Korea the US will pursue. Observing the landmark 2015 agreement between Seoul and Tokyo remains key to closer cooperation, he said.