Three weeks before taking office, Donald Trump issued a stark warning to North Korea:
North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017
Trump has largely stuck to this tough-guy approach. He has threatened China with tariffs if it doesn’t keep its belligerent client-state in check, and has said that if China won’t stop North Korea then the United States will be forced to act unilaterally.
There was a brief pause in this policy after Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping. “After listening for ten minutes, I realized that it’s not so easy,” Trump said about China’s complicated relationship with North Korea. But since then, Trump has repeatedly responded to North Korean missile tests with saber-rattling, apparently convinced that the threat of a U.S. strike—which is clearly a bluff—would stop North Korea’s missile program in its tracks.
Then on Monday evening North Korea launched a missile capable of reaching Alaska. In response, Trump has stuck to the same flawed approach:
North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy have anything better to do with his life? Hard to believe that South Korea.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2017
....and Japan will put up with this much longer. Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2017
Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us - but we had to give it a try!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2017
The problem with this strategy isn’t just that it isn’t working, it’s that it has made things worse. Trump’s belligerence has boxed North Korea in—if it were to stop testing intercontinental ballistic missiles now, it would look like it was giving in to Trump’s bluffs. Trump has almost no good options, but he is proving that it is still possible to make a bad situation even worse.