President Trump’s top diplomat at the United Nations warned of the growing risk of military conflict with North Korea following the regime’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
“Make no mistake, North Korea’s launch of an ICBM is a clear and sharp military escalation,” said Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., at an emergency Security Council meeting. “Their actions are quickly closing off the possibility of a diplomatic solution. The United States is prepared to use the full range of our capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies. One of our capabilities lies with our considerable military forces. We will use them, if we must, but we prefer not to have to go in that direction.”
Haley acknowledged the potential for conflict, but her most immediate threat was leveled at countries that have provided North Korea with economic lifelines in the face of international sanctions. Haley said she briefed Trump on the issue this morning — the president tweeted a complaint about growing trade ties between China and North Korea — and promised that the United States would use trade levers to punish such behavior.
“The world is on notice,” Haley said. “If we act together we can still prevent a catastrophe and we will rid the world of a grave threat. If we fault to act in a serious way, there will be a different response.”
North Korea conducted its first launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, demonstrating long-range missile capabilities that the Pentagon had not seen before Tuesday’s test. “We should be worried: Every test gets the North Koreans closer to mastering the technology for mounting a nuclear weapon on a ballistic missile powerful enough to strike the United States and its allies,” Jean Lee, a North Korea expert at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., said of the test.
Haley announced that the U.S. will introduce a new security resolution proposing tougher economic sanctions to cut off North Korea’s access to funding. “We will not look exclusively at North Korea,” she said. “We will look at any country that chooses to do business with this outlaw regime. We will not have patience for stalling or talking our way down to a watered down resolution.”
China and Russia have been the target of high-profile criticism over North Korea by the State Department. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, for instance, accused both nations of paying the North Korean regime for slave labor. “Responsible nations simply cannot allow this to go on, and we continue to call on any nation that is hosting workers from North Korea in a forced labor arrangement to send those people home,” Tillerson said while unveiling a report on human trafficking.
Haley suggested that, in order to forestall a military conflict, the Trump administration might be willing to embrace a trade war with North Korea’s patron states.
“There are countries that are allowing, even encouraging, trade with North Korea in violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” she told the UN. “Such countries would also like to continue their trade arrangements with the United States. That’s not gonna happen. Our attitude on trade changes when countries do not take international security threats seriously.”
