President Donald Trump is signaling a break with decades of US policy in his eagerness to stop rapid advances in North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as he looks to sweet talk China into ramping up pressure on North Korea.
Trump is offering China better trade terms it takes steps to put North Korea’s provocative behavior under check. China accounts for 80% of North Korea’s foreign trade and has significant political leverage over North Korea.
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“We have tremendous trade deficits with everybody, but the big one is with China. … And I told them, ‘You want to make a great deal?’ Solve the problem in North Korea. That’s worth having deficits. And that’s worth having not as good a trade deal as I would normally be able to make,” Trump told the wall street journal in an interview, a day after he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping by phone.
But Trump’s diplomatic forays so far with Xi Jinping whom Trump hosted at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida earlier this month seem to be yielding fruits. China has turned away coal shipments and made more forceful statements in recent weeks in an attempt to cool the ratcheting of tensions in the region.
Still, former White House officials insist there is a reason why successive Democrat and Republican administrations have kept the issues of trade and North Korea separate in diplomacy with China.
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