The White House insisted Thursday that diplomatic options are still available for dealing with North Korea, even after President Trump said Wednesday that “talking is not the answer.”
“Absolutely,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said when asked if negotiating is still a possibility.
The White House followed Trump’s tweet with a statement saying that “all options are on the table,” and Sanders reinforced that Thursday.
“All includes all, so I think that would certainly include diplomatic, economic and military options,” she said.
Shortly after Trump’s tweet, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis insisted that the U.S. is “never out of diplomatic solutions.”
Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have been rising in light of ongoing missile tests. Early Tuesday morning, North Korea fired a missile over Japan, landed it in the Pacific, and said it was the first step toward containing Guam, a U.S. territory.
