Trump Says North Korea Talks Futile, Will Do What Has to Be Done

President Donald Trump at Liberty National Golf Club in New Jersey on Oct. 1, 2017. Trump said that he will do what has to be done when it comes to North Korea. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump said that talks with North Korea won’t help after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson revealed that the United States has three lines of direct communication with the communist regime.

“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man ... ...Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!,” Trump said in a pair of Tweets on Sunday in response to Tillerson’s comments in Beijing the day before.

Trump has long been a fierce critic of North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and previous administrations’ lack of success in stopping its progress.

“Being nice to Rocket Man hasn’t worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won’t fail,” Trump wrote in a different tweet.

In 1994 then-President Bill Clinton signed an agreement with North Korea under which it promised to cease its nuclear program in return for aid and two light-water nuclear reactors. The regime broke the agreement and in 2006 conducted its first nuclear test. As of now, it has conducted six nuclear tests along with numerous ballistic missile tests.

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 26, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said that for the North Korean regime, nuclear weapons are tied to its survival.

“My assessment based on the intelligence I have read is that Kim Jong Un’s development of nuclear capability and his development of missile technology is primarily associated with regime survival,” Dunford said.

President Trump warned the Kim regime in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly that the United States could “totally destroy” the country if it was forced to defend itself or its allies.

Defense Secretary General James Mattis made a similar statement early last month, saying that while the United States does not seek the “total annihilation” of North Korea, “we have many options to do so.”

Following its sixth underground nuclear test in early September, and a subsequent ballistic missile test over Japan, North Korea has been stepping up its rhetoric against the United States—in particular, following Trump’s speech before the U.N., which the regime described in North Korean state media as recently as Oct. 1 as a war declaration.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders dismissed similar claims made by North Korea’s foreign minister last month, who had claimed that one of Trump’s tweets amounted to a declaration of war. Sanders dismissed the notion as “absurd.”

North Korea also repeated its frequent threat to destroy the United States. The regime also threatened South Korea again—this time, for supporting President Trump’s U.N. speech.

“If a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula, south Korea will be showered with fire of punishment beyond imagination,” read an article in North Korea’s state media.