Trump, Tillerson, and Perhaps China, to Get Serious about North Korea's Nuclear Program

NOTE TO READERS : In the comments to Monday's blog, one reader said that we should be careful about dumping all intelligence operatives, especially those in the field, into the basket that political appointee intel chiefs often deserve to be dumped into. The reader's comment struck me -- we know that most intel commuinity professionals are serious, tough-minded patriots who put their lives on the line to keep Americans safe and the United States secure. And, as the commenter reminded us, they put their lives at risk every day, and they sometimes lose their lives in outposts we don't know about fighting for freedom's values against terrorists and assassins whose evil intent we never have to face -- thanks to those intel pro's. When they die doing their job, they die unsung and unheralded, with only family or friends left to grieve, sometimes not even knowing why or where their loved one lost his or her life. For these truly heroic intelligence operatives, we can only be grateful and thank them for their love of country and liberty that keeps them going down those dark allies and making those dangerous contacts -- for us. We should keep them in our prayers every day. • • • NORTH KOREA. The mainstream media may be missing it, but the Trump administration is actually working on some important projects. • TheFederalistPapers reported on Sunday that "North Korea has upped the ante in their sabre-rattling of the free world." It was quoting the Associated Press report that North Korea has just conducted a test of a new type of high-thrust rocket engine that's supposed to be a “revolutionary breakthrough” in their space program. Hereditary dictator Kim Jong Un attended a test Saturday at the Sohae launch site, according to NK state media reports that said the test was intended to confirm the “new type” of engine’s thrust power and determine the reliability of it’s control system and stability. The Korean Central News Agency reports that Kim called the test “a great event of historic significance.” He also said the “whole world will soon witness what eventful significance the great victory won today carries,” and he claimed the test marks what will be known as the “March 18 revolution” in the development of the country’s rocket industry. • The engine is supposedly going to be used for North Korea’s space and satellite-launching program. All this is happening while North Korea is officially banned by the United Nations from conducting any long-range missile tests. It claims, however, that its satellite program is strictly for “peaceful use.” North Korean officials say that under a five-year plan, they intend to launch more Earth observation satellites and the country’s first geostationary communications satellite -- something that would be a major technological advance, bacause, according to the AP, getting that kind of satellite into place would need a more powerful engine than North Korea's previous ones. The North also claims it's trying to build a viable space program that would include a moon launch within the next 10 years. • The test came as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in China on a trip through Asia, in which he has focused on how to deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. Earlier this month, North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, heightening speculation that they are actually targeting the Hawaiian Islands. Tillerson said in Asia that military action against North Korea was not off the table. There are 28,500 US troops deployed in South Korea to help defend it from an aggressive move from NK. The AP says the North has been building "ever better long-range missiles and smaller nuclear warheads to pair with them," an has had a number of successes in its space program. It launched its latest satellite -- the Kwangmyongsong 4, or Brilliant Star 4 -- into orbit on February 7 last year, just one month after conducting what it claims was its first hydrogen-bomb test. • While in South Korea, Secretary Tillerson visited the North Korea border. Fox News was in the group and reported that Tillerson, in an exclusive interview with Fox, called the last 20 years of diplomatic efforts with North Korea a failure and refused to rule out increased weaponization and even nuclearization of America’s East Asian allies to deter North Korean aggression. Fox quoted Tillerson as saying : “Nothing has been taken off the table." Later in Seoul, Tillerson said : "Let me be very clear : the policy of strategic patience has ended. If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level we believe requires action, that [nuclearization] option is on the table." But, Tillerson added that the US wants to avoid military conflict and hopes other measures convince North Korea to suspend its weapons programs. • • • NEW TRUMP NORTH KOREA SANCTIONS? On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the Trump administration is considering sweeping sanctions aimed at "cutting North Korea off from the global financial system as part of a broad review of measures to counter Pyongyang's nuclear and missile threat. Reutrtrs was quoting a senior US official. The sanctions would be part of a multi-pronged approach of increased economic and diplomatic pressure -- especially on Chinese banks and firms that do the most business with North Korea -- plus beefed-up defenses by the United States and its South Korean and Japanese allies, according to the administration official familiar with the deliberations." While the option of pre-emptive military strikes against North Korea is not off the table -- note the above report of Secretary of State Tillerson's warning to Pyongyang during his Asia tour last week -- the Trump administration apparently is giving priority for now to less-risky options. Reuters reported : "The policy recommendations being assembled by President Donald Trump's national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, are expected to reach the President's desk within weeks, possibly before a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in early April, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. North Korea is expected to top the agenda at that meeting." Reuters says there is no indication of when President Trump will decide on a course of action, which could be delayed by the slow pace at which the administration is filling key national security jobs. The White House declined to comment to Reuters. • Trump met McMaster on Saturday to discuss North Korea and said afterward that the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, was "acting very, very badly." The President spoke hours after North Korea successfully tested a rocket-engine that, according to Reuters, "officials and experts think is part of a program aimed at building an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States [Fox News says the target is Hawaii]." • The administration source told Reuters that US officials, including Tillerson, had privately warned China about broader "secondary sanctions," confirming the Fox News report that new sanctions would target banks and other companies that do business with North Korea, most of which are Chinese. The move under consideration would mark an escalation of Trump's pressure on China to do more to contain North Korea. Reuters said it was not clear how Chinese officials responded to those warnings, but Beijing has made clear its strong opposition to such moves. • In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday that the situation on the Korean peninsula was at a crossroads and there were two prospects -- the parties could continue to "escalate toward conflict and potential war" or "all sides can cool down and jointly pull the Korean nuclear issue back to a path of political and diplomatic resolution." Hua also said China would strictly and comprehensively implement its duties under the UN Security Council resolutions, which meant implementing sanctions but also making efforts to get back to talks. • A Trump administration use of widened secondary sanctions would be similar to America's use of extended sanctions to pressure Iran to open negotiations with the West on its suspected nuclear weapons program. That effort ultimately led to the 2015 Obama deal to restrict Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. But, as with Iran, the international community would have to agree to cooperate in enforcing extended sanctions against North Korea China for them to be effective, especially by China, which has shown little cooperation in putting a tight squeeze on its neighbor -- perhaps in an effort to keep greater numbers of North Koreans from flooding across the border into China. According to Reuters, analysts also have questioned whether such sanctions would be as effective on North Korea as they were on a major oil producer such as Iran, given the isolated nation's limited links to the world financial system, and its heavy reliance on illicit trade done via small Chinese banks. So, to be applied successfully, the new measures would have to threaten to bar those banks from the international financial system. Also under consideration are expanded efforts to seize assets of Kim and his family outside North Korea, the official told Reuters. • Military options are also under review and include a strengthened US presence in the region and deployment of advanced missile defenses, initially in South Korea and possibly in Japan. Last week, we discussed in a blog the US military installation of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system in South Korea, despite Chinese opposition. Tillerson warned on Friday that Washington had not ruled out military action if the threat from North Korea becomes unacceptable. But, for now, Reuters says that US officials consider pre-emptive strikes too risky, given the danger of igniting a regional war and causing massive casualties in Japan and South Korea and among tens of thousands of US troops based in both allied countries. Another US government source told Reuters that President Trump could also opt to escalate cyber attacks and other covert action aimed at undermining North Korea's leadership : "These options are not done as stand-alones. It's going to be some form of 'all of the above,' probably excluding military action." • • • TILLERSON TO SKIP NATO MEETING? Secretary of State Tillerson reportedly plans to skip a meeting with NATO foreign ministers next month in order to stay home for a visit by China's president. He will then go to Russia later in April, US officials said on Monday, disclosing an itinerary that allies may see as giving Moscow priority over them. Tillerson intends to miss what would have been his first meeting of the 28 NATO allies on April 5-6 in Brussels so that he can attend President Donald Trump's expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, four current and former US officials have told Reuters. Skipping the NATO meeting and visiting Moscow could risk increasing a perception that Trump may be putting US dealings with big powers first, while smaller nations that depend on Washington for security are kept waiting, two former US officials said. • But, a State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson would meet on Wednesday with foreign ministers from 26 of the 27 other NATO countries -- all but Croatia -- at a gathering of the coalition working to defeat the Islamic State militant group. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg arrived in Washington on Monday for a three-day visit that was to include talks with US Defense Secretary James Mattis and taking part in the counter-Islamic State meetings. The State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson would meet the NATO foreign ministers in Washington at the counter-Islamic State talks. The State Department spokeswoman said : "After these consultations and meetings, in April he will travel to a meeting of the G7 (Group of Seven) in Italy and then on to meetings in Russia," saying US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon would represent the United States at the NATO foreign ministers meeting. • Progressive Democrats were fast in condemning the Tillerson agenda. Representative Eliot Engel, the senior Democrat on the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, said Tillerson was making a mistake by skipping the Brussels talks : "Donald Trump's Administration is making a grave error that will shake the confidence of America's most important alliance and feed the concern that this Administration simply too cozy with (Russian President) Vladimir Putin. I cannot fathom why the Administration would pursue this course except to signal a change in American foreign policy that draws our country away from western democracy's most important institutions and aligns the United States more closely with the autocratic regime in the Kremlin." • However, Tillerson will have met with all NATO partners except Croatia and also the allied leaders in the G7 before going to Russia, which sends the message that the Trump administration has its allies onboard before sending Secretary of State Tillerson to the Kremlin. • We may also wonder what effect the Monday hearings by the House Intelligence Committee and the bombshell announcement by FBI Director James Comey that it is investigating Russia will have on any planned Tillerson visit to Russia. Will President Putin ignore the FBI and continue to court the Trump administration, or will he react badly and 'postpone' any Tillerson visit? • • • DEAR READERS, the news is not all positive, but President Trump is not to blame for things the MSM doesn't cover. For example, Judicial Watch reported in early March that the US government has quietly spent millions of taxpayer dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia by colluding with leftwing billionaire philanthropist George Soros, quoting from records obtained by Judicial Watch. JW states : "Barack Obama’s US Ambassador to Macedonia, Jess L. Baily, has worked behind the scenes with Soros’ Open Society Foundation to funnel large sums of American dollars for the cause, constituting an interference of the US Ambassador in domestic political affairs in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The cash flows through the State Department and the famously corrupt US Agency of International Development (USAID), which is supposed to provide global economic, development and humanitarian assistance. USAID has allocated about $5 million to Progressive Soros groups in Macedonia since 2012, documents show, and at least $9.5 million has been earmarked by the agency to intervene in the Balkan nation’s governmental affairs for 2016-2021" Judicial Watch says : "State Department figures have been tougher to come by and Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the numbers. Judicial Watch also fired off a public records request to USAID because the preliminary figures, obtained through various sources in both the US and Macedonia, appear to be incomplete." Judicial Watch describes the clandestine Soros operations, provided to it by high level US and Macedonain sources : "The Open Society Foundation has established and funded dozens of leftwing, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Macedonia to overthrow the conservative government. One Macedonian government official interviewed by Judicial Watch in Washington DC recently calls it the 'Soros infantry.' The groups organize youth movements, create influential media outlets and organize violent protests to undermine the institutions and policies implemented by the government." JW gives the example of one of the Soros’ groups funding "the translation and publication of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals into Macedonian." With the help of American financing, there have been a number of violent protests in recent months coordinated by Soros’ Open Society Foundation through its US-funded NGOs, sources told Judicial Watch. Thanks to Obama’s ambassador, who has not yet been replaced by President Trump, the US government keeps the money flowing so the groups can continue operating and recruiting, sources in Macedonia and the US confirm. With a population of about 2 million, Macedonia has one of the more conservative governments in Europe. This includes the lowest flat tax in Europe, close ties with Israel and pro-life policies. The country recently built a border fence as a crackdown on an illegal immigration crisis that overwhelmed its law enforcement agencies. • Some US members of Congress have demanded answers from Ambassador Baily, USAID, and the State Department. Typically, the State Department has stonewalled the inquiries and USAID hasn’t been much more forthcoming. Last month Utah Senator Mike Lee sent Ambassador Baily a letter asking questions involving the US Mission to Macedonia’s involvement in the political process and its connections to the Open Society Foundation. It is unlikely that Americans will get answers, especially since Baily is probably soon to be replaced. But, as Judicial Watch says, the fact remains that millions of US taxpayer dollars have already been spent on this illicit operation and the government agencies need to be held accountable. • And, it isn't just Macedonia. Recently, Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban lashed out against Soros for funding groups to secretly influence the country’s politics : “Large-bodied predators are swimming here in the waters. This is the trans-border empire of George Soros, with tons of money and international heavy artillery.” • Judicial Watch says : "It became increasingly clear toward the end of the Obama administration, as it gave up all pretense of being a traditional administration operating somewhere near the center of political thought, that Rules for Radicals was its guiding bible." • The new US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, has his work cut out for him -- North Korea, China, Russia, Macedonia, Hungary, Syria, Iran, Iraq -- and many more messes left behind by Barack Obama and his Progressive entourage. Maybe we can find time for a little prayer for Secretary Tillerson, too.