Trump ambiguous as vice president and defense chief stress political pressure from China as key to resolving standoff
TOKYO — The U. S. will not relent until it achieves its objective of ensuring the Korean Peninsula is free of nuclear weapons, Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday while visiting Japan.
After meetings with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other leaders, Pence told reporters that President Donald Trump was confident that economic and diplomatic pressure has a chance of compelling North Korea to cooperate.
“It is our belief by bringing together the family of nations with diplomatic and economic pressure we have a chance of achieving a freeze on the Korean Peninsula, ” Pence said.
Fran Townsend, former homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush and CBS News senior national security analyst, joins « CBS This Mornin…
“We will not rest and will not relent until we obtain the objective of a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, ” he said.
The Trump administration has signaled a more forceful U. S. stance toward North Korea’s recent missile tests and threats, including a warning from Mr. Trump that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has “gotta behave.”
But as CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan reports, Mr. Trump has refused to explain his strategy, suggesting he wants to keep the North Koreans guessing, but in an interview on Monday he said all of his predecessors had been outwitted by North Korea’s ruling Kim dynasty.
“You look at different things over the years with President Obama. Everybody has been outplayed. Everybody has been outplayed and they’ ve all been outplayed by this gentleman (Kim Jong Un) and we’ ll see what happens, ” Mr. Trump said in the interview with Fox News.
Christopher Hill, who served as ambassador to South Korea under President George W.
