Donald Trump’s national security adviser issued a stark warning the day before the President left Washington for a critical swing through Asia: “We’re running out of time.”
While there is little expectation that Trump will return to Washington having cracked the code to stopping North Korea’s advance, he is under considerable pressure to deliver a clear and consistent message on the US approach to the North Korean crisis. He needs to rally US allies and intends to crank up more pressure on China to change its isolated neighbor’s course.
And, as Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster warned, the clock is ticking. CNN learned earlier this week that North Korea is working on an advanced version of its existing KN-20 intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially reach the United States, and it is entirely possible that next year, Pyongyang could master the technology to tip such a missile with a miniaturized warhead.
That means that the current visit could be the last trip by a US president to see the region’s leaders face to face before that fateful threshold is crossed.
What’s the US strategy?
For now, the President has often left the region befuddled about the US strategy to resolving the crisis. Is that approach best exemplified by his explosive rhetoric threatening “fire and fury”? Or is it rooted in the quiet, cautious diplomacy embodied by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and supported by Defense Secretary James Mattis?
“It is important the President… bring forth a clear message that is not contradicted by his Cabinet members. You’ve got Tillerson talking diplomacy, you’ve got the President talking military action and personal insults,” said Bill Richardson, the former US energy secretary, ambassador and repeat US envoy to North Korea. “And he has to get a common strategy among our allies. We’re divided.”
And yet just as Trump’s most crucial task will be to express the United States’ stance clearly, cogently and without contradiction, it is Trump’s penchant for impulsive and bellicose rhetoric that is leaving the region most on edge.
Trump is touching down on the heels of a salvo of anti-North Korea sanctions and other pressure tactics that have earned his administration plaudits from US allies in the region. Former US officials and regional experts agree that the administration has delivered the furthest-reaching sanctions yet and needled China toward its most significant actions against North Korea to date.
But those who praise his administration’s work to beef up the diplomatic pressure campaign are just as quick to criticize Trump for the ways in which he has undermined those efforts — and they worry the President could similarly undermine the careful choreography and delicate diplomacy prepared by his own advisers with the stroke of a tweet or an off-script comment while in the region.
