Ex-ambassador: Trump trying to 'out-North Korean the North Koreans'
By KEVIN ROBILLARD 04/16/17 10:59 AM EDT
Former Ambassador Christopher Hill, who led the Bush-era negotiations to get rid of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, said Sunday that President Donald Trump is "trying to out-North Korean the North Koreans" with his aggressive rhetoric against the totalitarian state.
"I think hes trying to out-North Korean the North Koreans, so lets see if that works," Hill, a former ambassador to South Korea who later served as ambassador to Iraq under President Barack Obama, said on ABC's "This Week."
"Certainly it makes people nervous when theyre not quite sure what he means by it. And, you know, great powers cant really bluff. So when you talk in those terms, youve got to be prepared to back it up. And I guess thats what worries people the most."
The Trump administration has debated responding to North Korea's aggressiveness by placing nuclear weapons in South Korea or by plotting to assassinate dictator Kim Jong Un, NBC News reported earlier this month.
Hill said the threat posed by North Korea now was greater than in the past because of the country's recent successful missile tests. "its a new generation of missiles, and clearly theyre working on a warhead design for nuclear devices," he said. "So this is, I think, a very serious matter, and its coming down the tracks."
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http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/trump-north-korea-237265