The Trump administration has reportedly used a secret North Korea strategy directive since March

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a field

(Image credit: STR/Getty Images)

President Trump in March signed a directive to guide U.S. strategy toward North Korea,The Washington Post reported Saturday evening, a document that called for "actions across a broad spectrum of government agencies and led to the use of military cyber-capabilities" to discourage Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. The directive was not made public at the time as it could make U.S.-North Korea talks less likely.

The Post report cites multiple unnamed administration officials who told the paper the directive requires diplomats to mention North Korea "in virtually every conversation with foreign interlocutors," persistently asking other nations to sever all ties to the isolated state. In one case, Vice President Mike Pence informed foreign officials, to their surprise, that their nation has $2 million in trade with North Korea. The directive also led to U.S. Cyber Command working to limit North Korean hackers' internet access.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.