North Korea visit: Trump calls off Pompeo trip
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will not be travelling to North Korea in the immediate future after Donald Trump asked him to call off a planned trip.
The president said in a tweet that insufficient progress was being made on denuclearising the Korean peninsula.
And he suggested China was not doing enough to pressure North Korea - due to trade tensions with the US.
After his summit with the North Korean leader in June, Mr Trump said the country was no longer a nuclear threat.
But since then there have been several reports that it is failing to dismantle nuclear facilities.
The UN's nuclear agency (IAEA) has also said North Korea is continuing with its nuclear programme.
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What is Mr Trump's latest line?
Mr Pompeo was due to head to Pyongyang next week with his newly appointed special envoy for North Korea - Stephen Biegun, a retiring Ford executive.
It would have been the secretary of state's fourth trip, though he was not expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Mr Trump took a swipe at China in the second of three tweets on the issue.
China and the US are embroiled in a tit-for-tat tariff war after Mr Trump complained about the size of the US trade deficit with China and what Washington sees as other unfair trade practices.
However, only two days ago Mr Trump said China had been a "big help on North Korea".
Mr Pompeo might still make another trip though.
How much of a shift is this?
"There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea," Mr Trump tweeted on arriving back in the US from the June summit with Mr Kim in Singapore.
"Everybody can feel much safer," he said.
After the optimism of Singapore, the latest development might seem like quite a change.
Image copyright REUTERS Image caption Mike Pompeo during his last visit in July
But there have been ups and downs in the Trump-North Korea relationship since then.
After a visit by Mr Pompeo in July, North Korea condemned his "gangster-like demands", only for another trip to be announced, albeit now cancelled.
And the summit itself was called off in May - Mr Trump citing Pyongyang's "open hostility" - only for it to take place after all.
The US has made clear that it wants to see an end to the North's nuclear activities before it will consider lifting economic sanctions.
The summit was seen as possible turning point after a ratcheting up of tensions.
North Korea had carried out a sixth nuclear bomb test in September and boasted of its ability to launch a missile at the United States.
Reality setting in?
IMO, without the support of China the US isn't going to make any headway with NK.
Thursday was the day our tariffs kicked in.
The "last three" shippments of American coal are being unloaded as China stopped all purchases of coal from the US
and will enact retaliatory tariffs as well.
Today a US vessel loaded with coal for China was diverted to South Korea..That 25% tariff is a bitch.
True, and as trump pointed out, China increased trade with NK by 40% since he took office.
Winning!
That is true and as long as Trump keeps hammering on China it isn't going to change.
More tariffs by the administration only sets up China to return in kind. None of that is going to help the NK situation.
"bull in a china shop"
"loose cannon"
"bomb waiting to go off"
Child playing with a loaded gun!
They are all pretty accurate.
Or, like this,