Following North Korea’s recent warhead launch from a submarine, which was the country’s longest flight to date, Obama has finally issued a statement condemning the communist regime’s nuclear tests.
After the newest launch of the nuclear warhead, North Korea said that it was designed to mount to a ballistic missile.
“As North Korea has publicly said nuclear warheads have been standardized and customized to mount on ballistic missiles, we should keep in mind that North Korea’s nuclear missiles are a realistic, imminent threat targeting us, not a simple threat for negotiations,” said South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye.
So how is the White House going to deal with this? Obama said his administration would be introducing new sanctions “to demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences to its unlawful and dangerous actions.”
However, the country has launch several threatening tests prior to this major one and is finally now being called out by the president.
“To be clear, the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state,” said Obama. “Far from achieving its stated national security and economic development goals, North Korea’s provocative and destabilizing actions have instead served to isolate and impoverish its people through its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities.”
Isn’t this a little too late? The first test was conducted in 2006, then another in 2009 and 2013. Now in 2016, the country has completed two nuclear weapon tests.
Obama had a meeting with world leaders from Asia Friday morning where they discussed North Korea’s nuclear program. The US president said he spoke with both the South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and promised an “unshakable U.S. commitment to take necessary steps to defend our allies in the region.”
But because of North Korea’s biggest trading ally China, it isn’t going to be easy to penalize North Korea.
China is the communist country’s chief economic and diplomatic partner and has formerly made it clear that they won’t be condemning or even getting involved.
China is continuing this approach following the recent nuclear test. “The crux of the Korean nuclear issue lies not in China but in the U.S. as this issue is nothing but conflict between the DPRK and the U.S.,” said Hua Chunying, China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Monday. “It has been repeatedly proven that sanctions themselves cannot solve this problem. Any unilateral action that aims to pursue selfish gains can only lead to a dead end.”
Chunying then recommended solving this issue through “dialogue and consultation.”
But, we need stronger leadership to cleverly come up with a solution to this problem. Trump has previously stated that giving more pressure to China could be the answer. “I would speak to him (North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un,) I would have no problem speaking to him,” said Trump to Reuters. “At the same time I would put a lot of pressure on China because economically we have tremendous power over China. China can solve that problem with one meeting or one phone call.”
Editor’s note: This is a ludicrous statement by Obama. North Korea has a long history of nuclear testing and more recently ballistic missile testing. In his seven years as President, Obama has done nothing to stop their progress, and his drawing a line in the sand is an empty gesture.