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WASHINGTON – While President Donald Trump launches regular praise for Kim Jong Un in interviews and on Twitter, a steady stream of evidence that North Korea still manufactures nuclear weapons has pushed his administration to adopt a much more aggressive stance. towards Pyongyang.
According to three US officials, the new information shows that Kim's regime has intensified its efforts to conceal its nuclear activity. In the three months since Singapore's historic summit and Trump's proclamation that North Korea intends to denuclearize, North Korea has built structures to mask the entry of North Korea. at least one warhead storage facility.
The United States has also observed North Korean workers moving warheads out of the facilities, officials said, although they do not speculate on the destination of the warheads.
A former senior US official said that North Korea frequently moved equipment to obstruct intelligence gathering abroad. "They are trying to move them so our sensors are confused," said the manager.
US intelligence estimates that North Korea could produce five to eight new nuclear weapons in 2018, according to three current and former US officials. This pace is virtually identical to their assessment of diet production of about six a year before the Trump-Kim summit.
Bruce W. Bennett, Senior International / Defense Researcher at the RAND Corporation and expert on military affairs in Northeast Asia, agrees with this assessment of the pace of production.
"Since the beginning of 2018, Kim has abandoned and dismantled no nuclear weapons, but has probably built five to nine new nuclear weapons, so he has not frozen his nuclear program and he has certainly not done so. denuclearization. "
The Trump administration has launched what it calls a "maximum pressure" campaign against North Korea in response.
"We will do it together!
Public rhetoric, meanwhile, has a different tone. After his June meeting with Kim in Singapore, Trump said, "There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."
Trump tweeted a "thank you" to Kim on Thursday for proclaiming his "unshakeable faith" after a South Korean official said Kim wanted to denuclearize by the end of Trump's first term. The South Korean official said Kim had pointed out that he had never said anything negative about President Trump.
"We'll do it together!", Tweeted Trump.
On Friday morning, Fox News aired a recorded interview with Trump in which he insisted: "Kim Jong said very nice things, he said we wanted to get denuclearization during the Trump administration."
On Sunday, North Korea held its annual military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the nation on 9 September. In recent years, the Kim regime took advantage of the parade to show missiles and new technologies.
This year, however, North Korea has not posted any ICBMs. On Twitter, President Trump said the "experts" announced the absence as a sign of Kim's "denuclearization commitment". He thanked Kim and described the lack of missiles as "a very positive statement".
"We will both prove that everyone is wrong! There is nothing better than a good dialogue between two people who love it!
A spokesman for the National Security Council, however, said President Trump was leading the campaign against North Korea. "The president tightly directs all aspects of the DPRK's administration policy, including the negotiations and the lobbying campaign. He is clear on the challenges and sees it as a unique and ephemeral opportunity to use diplomacy to achieve our goals.
But North Korea's recent actions have been testing the Trump team's pressure campaign, and now the administration is looking for ways to strengthen it.
According to three US officials, the international maritime coalition will intensify its efforts to expose ships and countries that escape sanctions to illegal shipments of goods between ships at sea.
NBC News reported Wednesday that China has intensified legal and illegal trade with North Korea since the Singapore summit, in defiance of sanctions. North Korean trucks are again on the border, Chinese tourists are flying to Pyongyang and China has accepted shipments of North Korean coal by sea. China loosening its enforcement of sanctions, the United States will struggle to find a lever against North Korea.
The international coalition, which includes military ships from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, has been patrolling the waters for several months, but Efforts are currently being made to a senior US official, which means that the coalition would begin to publicly denounce individuals who violate the sanctions at sea.
"There is an interest in involving more ships and planes," said a senior US official, adding that the hope is that partner countries will strengthen their presence. "This is to strengthen the coordination of the application of sanctions by the United Nations," he added, including sharing information with partners.
Japan on Friday announced plans for its naval forces – as well as the United States – to operate from Kadena Air Base to monitor and conduct illegal shipping activities by North Korea.
James Faeh, a former Pentagon officer in charge of Korea, warns that more sanctions and shame on those who violate sanctions are not the way to force North Korea to denuclearize.
"It is very unlikely that it will work," he said. "Maintaining the pressure on North Korea in a tangible way is the right way to go, but it must involve awareness raising actions in other countries in the region and cooperation with the brutal North Korean regime."
Pompeo has entered skeptical discussions
It is unclear whether new information on North Korea's continued nuclear activity played a role in Trump's last-minute decision to remove Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from a scheduled visit to New York. Pyongyang. Two people familiar with the subject said that Pompeo, who had become very familiar with information about Pyongyang as CIA director, has begun talks with North Korea, very skeptical about the success of the operation. & # 39; t. Officials said he was much more optimistic that the US could reach an agreement with Iran.
A former senior administration official, informed of the negotiation process, said Pompeo had withdrawn his trip to Pyongyang: "They face growing evidence on all fronts that North Koreans do not cooperate."
Another former senior administration official said President Trump did not want to see another round of news with bad headlines in North Korea before mid-term, as this is one of his major debates on foreign policy. "It was more and more obvious that everything was not going on," said the manager.
Pompeo was snubbed by North Koreans on his last trip to Pyongyang and was at risk of making another trip there without showing anything, the official said. Pompeo has appointed Steve Biegun, a special correspondent for North Korea, to visit Japan, China and South Korea next week in his new role.
The United States still needs to ensure that China plays a constructive role in diplomacy with North Korea. And Trump's proximity to Pyongyang has been complicated by tensions in relations with South Korea.
From the point of view of the administration, South Korea has conducted a series of diplomatic démarches against Trump – ranging from the provision of Vice President Mike Pence's seats at the Olympics to the decision to serve the shrimp. a disputed region at the Trump State Dinner. South Korea has also made a vigorous effort for the administration to take certain steps as part of its North Korean diplomacy.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in lobbied the White House to approve a declaration ending the Korean War, a move that Trump rejected last summer. The split between the two countries ended with Trump's meeting with Kim, but it has worsened since diplomacy with Pyongyang stalled.
Moon has called Trump this week and is hoping for a meeting with the president this fall in the United States. He is also pushing for the reengagement between Trump and Kim. Although the administration officials have again discussed a possible second meeting this fall between Trump and Kim, we do not know how serious the discussions are.
South Korean and North Korean officials are scheduled to hold two days of high-level talks in Pyongyang starting September 18. The following week, Trump travels to New York for the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
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