White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Trump still had confidence in his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, though didn’t believe the US should be talking to North Korea.
‘We’ve been clear that now is not the time to talk,’ Huckabee Sanders said from the podium on Monday. ‘The only conversations that have taken place, or that would, would be on bringing back Americans who have been detained.’
On his second trip to Beijing as the country’s top diplomat, Tillerson confirmed that the US and North Korea had been in contact, suggesting he was trying to work some back-channel diplomacy to decrease the nuclear threat.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that ‘now is not the time to talk’ to North Korea, a day after President Trump told his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson not to ‘waste his time’ on ‘Little Rocket Man’
President Trump (left) said Sunday that his own Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (right) was wasting time by trying to negotiate with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the regime’s nuclear and missile testing
President Trump may have thrown a wrench into Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s plans to start a dialogue with North Korea by dashing off these two tweets
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is visiting Beijing and revealed Saturday that the United States has direct channels to speak with the North Korean. He also advised that the Americans and the North Koreans needed to ‘calm things down’
On Sunday afternoon, President Trump tweeted that he ‘won’t fail’ in North Korea like his predecessors Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama
President Trump has nicknamed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (pictured) ‘Little Rocket Man,’ for his testing of missiles and nuclear weapons
However, President Trump likely killed any chance of that, by putting down Tillerson’s efforts in a series of tweets on Sunday.
‘I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man…,’ Trump tweeted first. ‘Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!’
Trump also blended two North Korean leaders into one, suggesting ‘Rocket Man’ had been troubling American presidents for a quarter of a century.
‘Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail,’ Trump wrote.
Kim Jong Un became the ruler of North Korea in 2011 after the death of his father Kim Jong-Il, who took over the regime in 1997.
Both leaders have pursued a nuclear weapons program.
A reporter asked Huckabee Sanders if the administration was trying to get North Korea back to the table for talks, to which she said no, unless those conversations revolved around the release of the three remaining Americans being held by the regime.
‘That would be the only reason for us to have conversations with them at this time,’ Huckabee Sanders said.
The press secretary added that the US would continue to be ‘diplomatic pressure’ on North Korea.
‘But now is not the time simply to have conversations with North Korea,’ she said. ‘We’ve encouraged all of our allies and partners to do more, and we’re going to continue to keep all options on the table when it comes to that.’
Over the weekend, Tillerson tried to preach caution with the North Koreans, as he also attempted to pressure China to get the regime under control.
‘I think the most immediate action that we need is to calm things down,’ Tillerson told reporters Saturday, after meeting with Chinese President Xi. ‘They’re a little overheated now. And I think we need to calm them down first.’
A reporter then asked Tillerson if he was referring to words used by President Trump.
Trump had adopted the nickname ‘Rocket Man’ for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, even deploying it during his speech before the United Nations General Assembly.
‘I think the whole situation is a bit overheated right now, Tillerson said. ‘I think everyone would like for it to calm down.’
He added, ‘Obviously it would help if North Korea would stop firing off missiles.’
‘That would calm things down a lot,’ he added, according to Time.
Tillerson also acknowledged for the first time Saturday that the US is in direct communication with the North Koreans over their nuclear and rocket tests, according to the New York Times.
‘We are probing, so stay tuned,’ Tillerson said when asked how he might initiate a conversation with the North Korean dictator.
‘We ask, “Would you like to talk?” We have lines of communication with Pyongyang – we’re not in a dark situation, a blackout,’ Tillerson said. ‘We have a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang,’ Trump’s secretary of state acknowledged.
‘We can talk to them, we do talk to them,’ Tillerson said, though wouldn’t go as far as describing the communication as an established dialogue.
‘We haven’t even gotten’ that far, Tillseron acknowledged.
The sheer brashness of Trump’s Sunday morning tweets were greeted with shock by those in the diplomatic world.
‘Diplomacy not a favor we dispense but a critical national security tool for ourselves,’ wrote Council on Foreign Relations president Richard N. Haass on Twitter Sunday. ‘Potus truly misguided here-& SecState should resign,’ Haass advised.