WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday called North Korea’s biggest nuclear test to date “very hostile and dangerous,” but his most significant rhetorical escalation was against South Korea, a close United States ally, which he accused of talking about “appeasement.”
Mr. Trump expressed his frustration in three sternly worded tweets early Sunday that were more muted than the previous taunts and threats he has directed at North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong-un.
“North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States,” he [vide=twitter;904305644651634688]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904305644651634688"[/video], about 10 hours after reports of a huge explosion, measured by the American authorities at a magnitude of 6.3, was detected in the area of a nuclear test site in the North.
As he has done in the past, Mr. Trump placed responsibility for responding to the crisis on North Korea’s closest neighbors, China and South Korea.
But he took a notably harsh line on Twitter against the new liberal government of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, amid an escalating dispute over trade that threatens to weaken a central partnership in the region as North Korea races to develop a nuclear warhead capable of striking the continental United States.
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Mr. Moon has proposed military talks with the North, though Mr. Trump [vide=twitter;902875515534626817]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/902875515534626817"[/video] that “talking is not the answer.”
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Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!
[videotwitter;904309527381716992]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904309527381716992"[/video]
He was somewhat gentler in his criticism of North Korea’s primary patron, China, which has provided North Korea with an economic and diplomatic lifeline for decades.
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Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
..North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.
[videotwitter;904307898213433344]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904307898213433344"[/video]
In recent days, the president has said more sanctions, coupled with implied and explicit threats of military action, would motivate Pyongyang to change its behavior.
The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said on Sunday that he planned to draft a new sanctions package that would cut economic ties with anyone who did business with North Korea.
“There’s a lot we can do to cut them off economically, much more than we’ve done,” Mr. Mnuchin said, speaking on “Fox News Sunday.” He called Pyongyang’s actions “unacceptable” and stressed the need for stronger steps.
Mr. Trump went so far on Sunday as to threaten to stop “all trade with any country doing business with North Korea,” an extremely unlikely prospect that, if carried out, would have cataclysmic consequences for the global economy. China is just one of the dozens of countries that trade with the North.
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Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.
[videotwitter;904377075049656322]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904377075049656322"[/video]
The president, asked as he left a church service whether he planned to attack North Korea, said, “We’ll see.”
The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said on Sunday that the president and his national security team were monitoring the situation closely and would hold a meeting on the crisis later in the day.
Robert Einhorn, a former senior State Department nonproliferation expert, said Mr. Trump’s criticism of the South Korean leader was misguided.
“Moon has actually been very supportive of the U.S. approach of maximum pressure and engagement,” Mr. Einhorn said. “Nothing he’s done so far smacks of appeasement.”
Ely Ratner, a top national security official in the Obama administration, said Mr. Trump’s criticism of South Korea came even as South Korea had been under considerable economic pressure from China because of its decision to allow the United States to install a missile defense system intended to deter the North Koreans.
“In a circumstance where we’re going to need close cooperation with not only South Korea but China as well, he’s coming out swinging at all of them rather than trying to build support and coordination,” Mr. Ratner said. “It just looks so haphazard.”
But Mr. Ratner said North Korea’s latest nuclear test could finally spur China, which views nuclear tests as far more serious than the North’s series of ballistic missile launches, to undertake a more serious crackdown on its neighbor.
“I think the nuclear test has a chance of pushing China into a place it’s never been before,” Mr. Ratner said.
Mr. Einhorn, though, expressed doubt. “There seems to be a ceiling on how much pain China is prepared to inflict on North Korea, and I don’t think this test will change that,” he said.
On Saturday, before the nuclear test, senior administration officials confirmed that they were considering withdrawing from a major trade agreement with South Korea over what they believe is Seoul’s pursuit of unfair protectionist policies that have led to huge United States trade deficits.
Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned of grave consequences if the United States withdrew from the free trade agreement.
“I don’t think that that would be good in any circumstances,” Mr. Flake said, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Now it’s particularly troubling, given what South Korea is faced with. I think that we need to do more trade, not less, and withdrawing from trade agreements is a very troubling sign.”
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Representative Joaquín Castro, Democrat of Texas and a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week” that “this is not the time to get into a big trade fight with South Korea.”
South Korean officials, in a shift from the previous conservative government, have called for increased negotiations with the North as a way of defusing the escalating tensions on the tinderbox Korean Peninsula.
In July, Mr. Moon’s top national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, called Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, to request approval under a bilateral treaty to build more powerful missiles to counter the growing threat from the North.
Around the same time, South Korea’s deputy defense minister called on Pyongyang to revive peace talks that have been suspended since 2015.
Mr. Trump favors a less conciliatory policy. When Mr. Kim threatened to fire missiles toward the American territory of Guam in July, the president responded with a series of thinly veiled threats on Twitter and then taunted the young leader, saying, “Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?”
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Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life? Hard to believe that South Korea.....
[videotwitter;882061157900718081]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/882061157900718081"[/video]
The president, who has been clearing many — but not all — of his policy-related tweets through his new chief of staff, John F. Kelly, referred to the North’s latest detonation as a “major nuclear test” — not as a test of a hydrogen bomb, as North Korea claimed. Such a bomb would be vastly more powerful than anything the North has previously tested.
Mr. Trump and his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, had expressed optimism in recent weeks that North Korea was beginning to show restraint after the president had threatened to rain “fire and fury” on Pyongyang. Mr. Tillerson even suggested that the two weeks of relative quiet from the North could offer a “pathway” to dialogue. But the North then carried out a provocative launching of a ballistic missile over Japan last week, and days later conducted the major nuclear test.
On trade, the president’s top economic advisers remain deeply divided over a possible withdrawal from the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement, as negotiators from both countries struggle to rewrite the five-year-old deal.
In recent days, a frustrated Mr. Trump has pushed his staff to take bold action against a host of governments, including the one in Seoul, that he has accused of unfair trade practices. But many of his more moderate advisers, including the chairman of the National Economic Council, Gary D. Cohn, believe that such a move could prompt a trade war that could hurt the United States economy.
An industry publication, Inside U.S. Trade, first reported late Friday that the administration was considering withdrawing from the treaty as early as next week.
“Discussions are ongoing, but we have no announcements at this time,” a White House spokeswoman said in an email.
But Mr. Trump, asked during a trip to the Gulf Coast on Saturday whether he was talking with his advisers about the trade deal, said: “I am. It’s very much on my mind.”
The idea of potentially withdrawing seems to have been prompted by the breakdown in negotiations between South Korean officials and the United States Trade Representative, Robert E. Lighthizer, an American official with knowledge of the situation said.
An initial meeting generated little consensus, with South Korean officials offering to consider minor adjustments to the agreement but rejecting a wholesale renegotiation, angering hard-liners in the White House who have targeted countries like China, Japan, Mexico and South Korea that have large trade surpluses with the United States.
But it remains unclear whether the administration would actually withdraw from the deal, and industry representatives who have lobbied the White House say the president’s team has done little of the work — like a wide consultation with affected industries — needed before taking such a step.
The possibility of abandoning the agreement has alarmed economists and some members of the president’s own party who fear that such a move would force South Korea to block American manufacturers and farmers from a lucrative market.
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