Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared an end to former President Obama’s policy of “strategic patience” toward North Korea on Friday, warning that further aggression by the regime could provoke a military response.
“The policy of strategic patience has ended,” Tillerson said in South Korea.
That’s an explicit repudiation of the Obama-era policy “of strategic patience in close coordination with our six-party allies,” as then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it in 2009. North Korea’s continued testing of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles caused alarm throughout Obama’s tenure and has President Trump’s team looking for new ways to crack down on the regime.
“We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures,” Tillerson said during the trip, which included a visit to the demilitarized zone and is one leg of a swing from Japan to China. “All options are on the table.”
Those options could include a military attack, but Tillerson said that would only be in response to escalating provocations by North Korea. “If North Korea takes actions that threaten South Korean forces or our own forces, that will be met with an appropriate response,” he said. “If they elevate the threats of their weapons program to the level that we believe requires action, that option is on the table.”
Any new U.S. policy towards North Korea need to be implemented in concert — or at least with an understanding — not just among allies in Japan and South Korea, but in China. That relationship has grown tense, as China is angry that the United States is deploying a missile defense battery to South Korea. Meanwhile, American lawmakers are mulling sanctions designed to punish China for preparing to deploy surface-air missiles to one of the most important shipping lanes in the world, where the Chinese are asserting sovereignty claims.
“While we acknowledge China’s opposition [to the missile defense system], its economic retaliation against South Korea is inappropriate and troubling,” Tillerson said. “We ask China to refrain from such action. Instead, we urge China to address the threat that makes that necessary, that being the escalating threat from North Korea.”
