WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is ratcheting up the urgency over North Korea’s nuclear pursuit ahead of President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first meeting, with a senior U. S. official warning that the “clock has now run out” on Pyongyang.
Trump and Xi will huddle Thursday and Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, a venue chosen to give the summit a more informal feel. White House officials said Tuesday that trade and security would be high on the new American president’s agenda, including pushing China to exert more economic pressure on North Korea.
Speaking at a White House business forum Tuesday, Trump called North Korea a “humanity problem. ” A White House official later said “all options are on the table” for the U. S., though the official would not say what steps Trump was willing to take to curb Pyongyang’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
Like many nations, China is still grappling with Trump’s mercurial nature after the relative transparency and predictability of the bilateral relationship under Barack Obama. Both during his campaign and after his victory, Trump complained repeatedly over China’s allegedly unfair trade practices, its perceived lack of assistance in reining in North Korea and its drive to cement control over the South China Sea.
Some analysts believe Xi might be willing to hand Trump a symbolic victory on trade to put a positive spin on the meeting.
“Xi probably can’t accommodate Trump on sovereignty and security issues, but he has a lot of leeway on economics,” said Robert Sutter, a China expert at George Washington University in Washington, D. C.
Yet even if Xi is able to offer Trump deliverables, he will still have to deal with “a restless U. S. president valuing unpredictability and seeking advantage for his agenda going forward,” Sutter said.
Trump was seen as moving trade even more to the forefront when he signed a pair of executive orders Friday focused on reducing the trade deficit. Coupled together, the orders appeared to be a symbolic shot at China, which accounted for the vast bulk — $347 billion — of last year’s $502 billion trade deficit.
