Trump Moving Toward Hard Line With China on North Korea Crisis

Donald Trump is grappling with the limits of his
strategy to rely on China to get North Korea to limit its nuclear and
ICBM programs following Kim Jong Un’s July 4 test of an intercontinental
ballistic missile.
The U.S. president must now decide whether the test, coupled with the
death last month of an American college student who had been imprisoned
in North Korea, means giving up on collaboration and more directly
confronting Beijing. Those advocating a hard line within the
administration are emboldened by the recent North Korean actions, and
the White House is weighing a series of gestures that could antagonize
President Xi Jinping’s government.
But Trump’s options are limited by practical and economic realities.
The president must calibrate a response that would prompt Chinese
pressure on Kim without causing difficult repercussions for U.S.
interests. Trump must also convince Beijing he’s willing to follow
through on his threats, particularly after Chinese authorities appeared
to shrug off promises to solve the North Korean issue on his own, if
necessary.
Trump has expressed increasing exasperation with China on Twitter.
“So much for China working with us - but we had to give it a try!” he
said in a tweet on Wednesday.
His United Nations ambassador, Nikki Haley, threatened on Wednesday
to cut off U.S. trade with any nation that does business with North
Korea. The U.S. will present a new resolution to punish North Korea for
its missile test in coming days, Haley said during an emergency session
of the UN Security Council.