North Korea says Syria airstrikes prove its nukes justified

It wasn’t supposed to be like that.

While no detailed plans have been drawn up, both parties came away from the summit with a 100-day plan that would involve discussions about reducing the USA trade deficit with China. “Destroying North Korea’s nuclear facilities with air raids is not considered an absurd idea by the Trump team any more, but is a serious option that is frequently talked about”.

From the beginning, China felt it had the situation under control.

“If they manage to strike up a good personal relationship, it will be the first step to good US-China relations under the Trump administration”, he added. A major commentary published in the People’s Daily on April 1 was headlined, “Xi Jinping’s big diplomatic move draws global attention”.

The formidable differences notwithstanding, Mar-a-Lago was a win-win for both presidents.

“The posture between the two (leaders) really set the tone for our subsequent meetings between our high-level delegations”, said U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a press briefing following Xi-Trump meetings. He’s also criticized China for grabbing jobs that could otherwise go to Americans.

FILE – A clerk counts Chinese yuan and USA dollar banknotes at a branch of Bank of China in Taiyuan, China, Jan. 4, 2016.

Tillerson said President Trump’s trip to China would be a “state visit” in 2017, but gave no other details.

“The upside is that the United States may be able to denuclearise the North by force. but it will come at a huge cost to the region and to the United States”, he told AFP.

On the eve of the summit, North Korea tested another ballistic missile. So far, I have gotten nothing.

At least according to the Americans, the U.S. and China have agreed to a 100-day plan that is supposed to start rebalancing the massive Chinese surplus of exports over imports. By ordering a report in 90 days, the administration has raised expectations with trade partners that Mr Trump will move from sweeping claims about trade abuses to actually having some facts to back them up. So the can was kicked down the road, for now.

The possibility of USA military action against North Korea in response to such a test emerged as an option following last week’s US strikes against Syria. If so, it had no discernible impact.

In this May 10, 2016, photo, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un watches a parade from a balcony at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang.

The event was overshadowed by US Tomahawk missile strikes in Syria.

The only concrete achievement of the summit was an agreement on a format for continued communications. -China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

However, here again, the United States must accept some of the blame. That could indicate that the relationship between the two countries remains stable, despite Trump’s fiery accusations during his campaign, and afterward, that China has stolen USA manufacturing jobs.

But the US President ended up with little except the beginning of a personal relationship with President Xi.

Trump recently declared that if China fails to apply additional pressure on North Korea, the USA would act on its own. As such, and beyond the rhetoric, President Trump has the potential to make trade deals with China that satisfy his domestic constituents while avoiding a trade war with Beijing.

And in one of the sharpest reverses of his presidency, Trump backed off from a campaign pledge by saying he would not declare China to be a currency manipulator, an action that could have led to higher tariffs on Chinese goods. China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported before the end of the Mar-a-Lago summit that Xi had invited Trump to a state visit in China later this year, most likely after the Communist Party congress, and the American president accepted the invitation “with pleasure”.

Earlier this month, Trump lifted restrictions imposed by Obama on the Pentagon, instructing Defense Secretary James Mattis to reactivate the American military’s expansive contingency planning mechanisms.