Trump: If needed, U.S. will act unilaterally on North Korea

(Image credit: Pool/Getty Images)

published 3 April 2017

If necessary, President Trump is willing to find a way to deal with the threat of a nuclear North Korea on his own, he told the Financial Times on Sunday.

"If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will," he said. "That is all I am telling you." Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit the United States on Thursday, and Trump is expected to pressure him to do more about North Korea, which experts fear could soon develop a long-range nuclear missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. "China has great influence over North Korea," Trump said. "And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won't. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don't it won't be good for anyone." He also told the Financial Times he could "totally" succeed if forced to take on Pyongyang solo, but did not elaborate on any possible actions.

Analysts have said China likely is North Korea's only international ally because it is fearful that if there is a unified Korea, U.S. troops will be based in a country it shares a border with, and the government is also worried about an influx of millions of North Korean refugees, the BBC reports. After North Korea conducted several missile tests in February, China banned coal imports from the country until the end of the year.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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