White House press secretary Sarah Sanders insisted Wednesday that President Trump is making progress in conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping about ways to de-escalate tension with North Korea and is not at a dead end.
“Look, as the president said earlier this morning and as we saw on his historic trip to Asia a couple weeks ago, we’re committed to working with China – continuing to put pressure on them. The president spoke with President Xi and will continue to do that and ask them to step up and help us in this process,” Sanders told Fox News on Wednesday.
“China knows what a serious threat this is. They know it has to be dealt with and we’ve seen them take bigger and bolder actions over the last couple of months as the relationship between President Trump and President Xi has developed. China has stepped up and done more. They voted with us at the U.N. and we hope they’ll continue to put maximum pressure on North Korea,” she added.
A day earlier, North Korea test-launched a missile that has the capability to reach the east coast of the United States.
The White House has been pushing China to pressure North Korea to stop testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. However, that pressure seems to have not paid off just yet as North Korea hasn’t stopped its weapons testing programs.
Sanders denied the administration has reached a dead end with that strategy.
“No. As the president said we’ll add additional sanctions very shortly that will continue to put that maximum pressure on North Korea,” she said when asked if negotiations had reached a dead end.
“We will continue doing everything that we can under the direction of [Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis and under the direction of the president to make sure we’re taking every step possible to protect Americans and to do what the ultimate goal is, that’s to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.”
