The president\u2019s comments, which came in tweets early on Tuesday, highlight his deepening frustration at China\u2019s inaction on North Korea.<\/b>
Trump declared on Twitter around 8 a.m.:
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But despite its own deepening frustration with Kim, China has so far been unwilling to tighten the vise on him.
President Xi Jinping of China did not offer Trump any public commitments when they met last week in Palm Beach, Fla. Even in private conversations, officials said, the Chinese leader was circumspect.
Though U. S. officials said the two leaders got along, the meeting was overshadowed by Trump\u2019s missile strike on a Syrian airfield, which U. S. officials hoped would send a message of resolve about the president\u2019s readiness to use military force to defend U. S. interests, in this case to deter the use of chemical weapons.
Trump followed that up by ordering a Navy carrier strike group into the waters off the Korean Peninsula \u2014 a show of force that previous presidents have used but that fanned fears in the region that the United States would consider a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea.
Still, Trump\u2019s explicit linkage of North Korea and trade suggested that the president was more likely to seek a bargain with China than to proceed unilaterally. Under pressure from the United States on trade, China proposed a 100-day plan during the summit meeting that would overhaul the trade relationship between the two countries.
In his first concrete move on trade, Trump plans to sign an executive order targeting countries that dump steel into the U. S. market, a measure that would be aimed mainly at China.
But it is not yet clear which side has the initiative in the evolving debate over trade. During his meeting with Xi, administration officials said, Trump warned that China needed to address its yawning trade imbalance with the United States immediately. But the Chinese did not bring any trade-related gestures to the meeting, as some experts expected.
Instead, they countered with the proposal for the 100-day plan. The United States embraced the idea, though the commerce secretary, Wilbur L. Ross, noted that the plan would have \u201cway stations\u201d to measure progress, suggesting that the administration is not willing to wait the full 100 days for results.
Trump\u2019s threat to act unilaterally against North Korea was not new. But a military attack on the country would be a far more complex and risky undertaking than the strike on Syria, given the North\u2019s nuclear ability and missile arsenal, and its proximity to huge population centres in South Korea.
With China, in particular, Trump has shown an inclination to pursue a transactional approach to policy. Last December, he suggested that he would use the U. S. relationship with Taiwan, which China views as a renegade province, as another bargaining chip in the relationship.<\/p>\n