WASHINGTON -- The United States plans to keep pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, a senior US administration official said Monday in a preview of the new national security strategy.
The strategy to be unveiled by President Donald Trump later in the day will focus on four pillars: protecting the homeland, promoting American prosperity, preserving peace through strength and advancing American influence.
It is expected to address the growing threat posed by North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
"It's very important both to defend the US homeland against ballistic missiles from anywhere, especially from North Korea, which has been the most belligerent and destabilizing country of 2017," the official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.
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US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. (AP-Yonhap) |
"But the strategy also is to not rest easy on the assumption we have to live with that threat," he said. "It's to keep pressing with maximum diplomatic and economic pressure to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and convince the North Korean regime that the best way forward, even in its own interest, is to give up those programs, and the president's pressing forward with that."
Despite trade issues between the US and China, Trump is "keenly aware and appreciative" that Beijing has done more to pressure Pyongyang than ever before, the official said. Trump also hopes to continue working with China to maintain that pressure and even increase it.
The official also noted it would not be in the long-term interest of China, Russia or other nations if North Korea's regional neighbors decided to arm themselves with nuclear weapons to defend themselves.
"So, our strategy is to convince these countries that this is a threat to everybody. We'll have to work together to address it," he said. (Yonhap)
