\u201cI see China’s hands all over this,\u201d the South Carolina Republican declares.<\/b>
\nThe Chinese government is behind North Korea\u2019s condemnation of the U. S. after the latest round of denuclearization talks, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday, mixing the Washington-Beijing trade dispute with news of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo\u2019s talks in Pyongyang.
North Korea, in a statement released Saturday hours after talks with Pompeo wrapped, called the negotiations \u201cregrettable\u201d and accused the U. S. of making \u201cgangster-like\u201d demands, according to The Associated Press. Earlier, Pompeo had told reporters that the talks had been \u201cproductive\u201d and had progressed \u201cin good faith.\u201d
\u201cI see China’s hands all over this. We\u2019re in a fight with China,\u201d Graham (R-S. C.), a Senate Armed Services Committee member, told \u201cFox News Sunday.\u201d \u201cIf I were President Trump, I would not let China use North Korea to back me off of the trade dispute. We’ve got more bullets than they do when it comes to trade.\u201d
The tough talk from North Korea, for whom China is the chief trade partner and international patron, came days after President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on China, prompting retaliatory tariffs from Beijing. Trump has accused China, which runs a significant annual trade surplus with the U. S., of unfair trade practices that he has said must come to an end.
The tit-for-tat tariffs between the U. S. and China have prompted global concern over the possibility of a trade war between the two massive economies.
Graham, among the most hawkish lawmakers in the Senate, also issued a warning to North Korea. In talks with Pompeo, Kim Yong Chol, a senior North Korean official, suggested the secretary of state might not have slept well given the weight of the denuclearization talks, to which Pompeo responded: \u201cI slept just fine.\u201d
\u201cTo our North Korean friends \u2014 can\u2019t say the word friend yet \u2014 you asked Pompeo did he sleep well,\u201d Graham said. \u201cIf you knew what I knew about what we could do to the leadership of North Korea, you wouldn’t sleep very well.\u201d
On another foreign policy matter, Graham suggested that Trump push back vigorously next week on the issue of Russia\u2019s interference in U. S. elections when he meets next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin, and Putin himself, have repeatedly denied having interfered with the 2016 election \u2014 a denial Trump has at times been slow to reject even though the U. S. intelligence community has long said Russia was indeed behind the interference campaign.
\u201cWhen Putin denies that he was involved in our election in 2016, reject the denial, challenge him,\u201d Graham said. \u201cDon’t let him deny the obvious. They\u2019re still trying to disrupt the 2018 election cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n