US President Donald Trump said if China will not cooperate in ending North Korea's nuclear and missile threat, the US will move to do so alone. Trump also took the time to respond to claims he is hostile to the EU.
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The US president issued the warning in an interview with the "Financial Times" newspaper in which he also declined to outline a specific plan for how the US might challenge North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
"If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you," said Trump, who told the interviewers that he is making a conscious choice to limit how much information he divulges when it comes to strategy.
He said he will discuss North Korea with Chinese President Xi Jinping when they will meet for the first time at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday and Friday.
"China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won't. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don't it won't be good for anyone," said Trump.
Foreign policy appointees in Trump's administration have made comments echoing his stance regarding China.
Speaking on US political show "This Week," US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley agreed that China needs to cooperate on handling North Korea.
"They need to put pressure on North Korea. The only country that can stop North Korea is China, and they know that," said Haley.
US review on North Korea ready
Trump's national security aides have completed a review of US options to pressure North Korea into curbing its nuclear and missile programs on Sunday, according to a US official.
The review, completed by the National Security Council on Trump's orders, considers a variety of economic and military measures, but emphasizes new sanctions as well as placing more pressure on China to exert control over Pyongyang.
Trump: US ready to act alone on North Korea
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US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in March that military action against North Korea was an "option on the table"after visiting the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea.
Trump's deputy national security adviser, K.T. McFarland, said there was a "real possibility" that North Korea could develop a nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching the US by the end of Trump's four-year term, according to the Financial Times.
China: North Korea's lone friend
China is North Korea's only ally, and provides food and other aid to the politically isolated and impoverished nation.
China also previously imported coal from North Korea, but banned imports of the fossil fuel for the rest of 2017 in retaliation for a North Korean missile test in February. Selling coal is an important source of income for Pyongyang.
North Korea in pictures: a rare glimpse into the isolated country
A team of journalists explored North Korea for a week, accompanied by officials who monitored the images and ensured not a single citizen was interviewed. The secluded country opened up and revealed itself.
The reporters from AP covered over 2,150 kilometers (1,336 miles), in a country of barely 25,000 kilometers of roads, merely 724 of those paved. They came back with only their photos as evidence of the life in the northern part of the secluded country. In the picture: A woman walks along a road southeast of Pyongyang in North Korea's North Hwanghae province.
A North Korean man sits by a cooking fire he built to roast potatoes and chicken in the town of Samjiyon, in Ryanggang province. Possibly more than any other populated place on earth, North Korea is terra incognita, but the AP team was granted access to see North Korea and travel through places that, they were told, no foreign journalist and few foreigners had been allowed to see before.
A boulder lies on a path near the peak of Mount Paektu in North Korea's Ryanggang province. North Koreans venerate Mount Paektu for its natural beauty, but more importantly because it is considered the home of the North Korean revolution. They also consider the mountain sacred as the place of their ancestral origin.
Farmers walk in a rainstorm with their cattle near the town of Hyesan, North Korea in Ryanggang province. "To get out of Pyongyang, we weaved our way around buses, streetcars, the black sedans of party officials and fleets of colorful new taxis that have over the past few years become commonplace," says Eric Talmadge, one of the jourmalists who participated in the journey.
Young North Korean schoolchildren help to fix pot holes in a rural road in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The country's best road is the 200-kilometer stretch of highway connecting the capital to the east coast port city of Wonsan. Beyond Wonsan, potholes, cracks or sudden patches of dirt road make travel a bumpy experience.
North Korean residents walk on along a river in the town of Kimchaek, in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. The once-productive cities along its east coast, like the coal mining town of Kilju and the nearby city of Kimchaek - built around a sprawling but now eerily quiet ironworks complex - have become a rust belt, gritty and relentlessly gray.
The remains of lunch left on a restaurant table in the city of Wonsan, North Korea. The government "minders" accompanied the journalists throughout the entire trip. Like foreign tourists, the AP team only saw a bare trace of the deprivation residents experience. Most of the country's citizens cannot afford proper housing, let alone a visit to a restaurant.
The journalists' itineary was dictated by North Korea's terms. There would be no stopping to interview random people. "It's quite possible none of them had ever seen an American before," said AP's Eric Talmadge, "but our presence went unacknowledged. No glances were exchanged. No words were spoken." Here boys are playing soccer in the town of Hyesan, in the northern Ryanggang province.
North Korean men share a picnic lunch and North Korean-brewed and bottled Taedonggang beer along the road in North Korea's North Hwanghae province. This year, according to United Nations experts, the country could come closer to feeding itself than it has in decades. But hunger remains a serious problem, with a third of North Korean children stunted in growth due to poor nutrition.
A farmer carries a fully grown cabbage after harvesting it from the main crop which will be harvested early November, on the outskirts of Pyongyang. About four-fifths of North Korea's land is too rugged to farm. Providing enough food to feed the nation is a struggle for North Korea, which suffered a near cataclysmic famine in the 1990s.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
No detour allowed
A man works on his car as others sit next to the Wonsan Sea in North Korea. For the most part, AP's reporters were not allowed to detour from their pre-approved route, which, to no one's surprise, did not include nuclear facilities or prison camps.
A group of young North Koreans enjoys a picnic on the beach in Wonsan. "Even on the loneliest of lonely highways, we would never be without a 'minder,' whose job was to monitor and supervise our activities," Talmadge explains. "We were not to take photographs of any checkpoints or military installations."
North Korean people rest next to the railroad tracks in a town in North Korea's North Hamgyong province. "Though we would not get to know the people along the way, the country itself had a great deal to say. And it was opening up before us," Talmadge said upon his return. "We had been granted unprecedented access."
Despite the ban, US officials have claimed China continues to import North Korean coal through "front companies" in the northeast Chinese city of Dalian. UN Ambassador Haley has urged China to halt the covert imports.
US-China relationship uncertain
Trump has often indicated he will have a combative and distrustful approach to relations with Beijing, although his tone has softened somewhat in recent weeks.
While campaigning, Trump repeatedly slammed China for "raping" and "killing" the US on trade issues. He has pledged to reduce the US trade deficit with China and threatened import taxes on products from the country.
Tillerson met with Xi in Beijing in March and said Trump was looking forward to "enhancing understanding" with China. Tillerson said the two countries will work together in addressing North Korea's nuclear program.
Trump criticizes North Korea's Kim Jong Un
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Trump 'didn't hear' Merkel
The paper also took the opportunity to ask the president about his apparent snubbing of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In an incident that quickly went viral, Trump apparently refused to shake the chancellor's hand when both journalists and Merkel herself asked him to during a photo op at the White House earlier this month.
"I shook hands about five times and then we were sitting in two seats...and I guess a reporter said 'shake her hand.' I didn't hear it."
Trump also responded to criticism that because of his apparent friendliness with pro-Brexit campaigners like Nigel Farage, he would be glad to see the EU break down entirely.
"I would have thought when it happened that more would follow," the president said, referring to last June's referendum, "but I really think the European Union is getting their act together."