President Trump wants Congress and international partners to target North Korea with new sanctions and moves to isolate the regime internationally, his team told senators Wednesday.
“The president’s approach aims to pressure North Korea into dismantling its nuclear, ballistic missile, and proliferation programs by tightening economic sanctions and pursuing diplomatic measures with our allies and regional partners,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said following a special briefing of the full Senate at the White House.
That’s hardly a dramatic break from the Obama administration’s policy, however, and the meeting left some senators unimpressed.
“It was an OK briefing,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker, a onetime contender to be Trump’s running mate or lead the State Department, told NBC after the briefing. “I’m not sure I would have had it,” he also said.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who predicted the meeting would be a “photo op” before the briefing took place, said the national security team emphasized that North Korea is at the top of their agenda.
“No, it was not a lot of new information,” he told Connecticut Public Radio. “Maybe there was no new information today. But they clearly have this at the top of their foreign policy agenda.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will chair a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday, concluding a week already heavy with North Korea-related events. That will give an opportunity to pitch the UN on ways to increase diplomatic pressure on the regime, perhaps through asking other nations to close down embassies connecting their countries to the regime.
“I’m not going to announce that he’s going to come out and ask the other countries to do it, but it’s one of the options that is seriously being considered,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Wednesday.
