Trump administration officials still hope for a peaceful end to the tensions between North Korea and the U.S., Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday.
“We still hope for diplomacy,” Tillerson told reporters at the White House just hours after President Trump announced that the State Department would designate North Korea a state-sponsor of terrorism.
“This is all part of just continuing to turn this pressure up,” he added.
Tillerson noted the terrorism designation is part of what Trump describes as a “maximum pressure” campaign and what he himself calls a “peaceful pressure” campaign.
“I think it is very symbolic, on the one hand, because it just points out, again, what a rogue regime this is,” Tillerson said of the decision. “The practical effects may be limited.”
The secretary of state noted that North Korea already faces a number of sanctions from the U.S. and from the United Nations Security Council, which has issued punishing new restrictions on countries dealing with Pyongyang this year.
“This will close a few additional loopholes,” Tillerson said of the terrorism designation.
Asked if he believed the administration would soon run out of diplomatic solutions to curtail North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, Tillerson replied: “No, I do not.”
Trump said earlier Monday that the Treasury Department would announce a fresh round of sanctions against the Kim regime on Tuesday.
Tillerson noted the process of reviewing whether Pyongyang’s actions warranted a terrorism designation began months ago, before Trump left for his five-country tour of Asia on Nov. 3.
”This designation is, as I said, one that we’re required to take from time to time. We‘ve been monitoring the situation,” Tillerson said. “We wanted to make sure we had sufficient evidence before we made the desingation. So this is a process that started several months ago.”
