President Trump said Tuesday night that his administration is “waging a campaign of maximum pressure” to prevent North Korea from obtaining nuclear missiles that could threaten the American homeland.
Embracing a notably more sober tone than he previously has on the North Korean crisis, the president asserted during his first State of the Union address that “past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation” from Pyongyang.
Mr. Trump stopped short of offering specifics on any changes to his current policy — one that has so far consisted of beefing up U.S. military assets in Northeast Asia, trading rhetorical barbs with North Korea’s dictator and pushing on China to help isolate Pyongyang economically.
But he suggested his administration is more determined than those that came before it to resolve the crisis. “I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this very dangerous position,” Mr. Trump said. “We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies.”
Otto Warmbier’s memory
Mr. Trump called out to the parents of Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who died last year of wounds suffered while detained in North Korea. American doctors have assessed the 22-year-old, who perished in the United States shortly after his release by North Korean authorities, sustained a catastrophic brain injury during his captivity.
Mr. Warmbier’s parents and brother and sister were in the audience at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday night. Tears streamed down their faces as Mr. Trump expressed sympathy for them. “You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Thank you very much. Thank you,” the president said. “Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto’s memory with total American resolve.”
Mr. Trump also called out to Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean defector in the audience at the Capitol. He said Mr. Seong-ho had nearly starved as a child during the 1990s in North Korea.
“In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger,” the president said. “He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves — permanently stunting their own growth.”
While Mr. Seong-ho’s father was caught while trying to escape North Korea and “was tortured to death,” Mr. Trump said Mr. Seong-ho successfully fled on crutches through China and Southeast Asia and now lives in South Korea.
“I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come,” the president said. “Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all … [and] a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom.”
The personalized remarks were a high-point of Mr. Trump’s comments relating to foreign policy and national security.
Dangers ’around the world’
While only a short portion of the State of the Union focused on such matters, the president stressed that “around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values.”
“In confronting these horrible dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means to our true and great defense,” he said.
On the Middle East, Mr. Trump said “American stands with” Iranians who recently held protests against their government, and he vowed to continue the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State terror group, claiming it has lost nearly 100 percent of the territory it once held in Syria and Iraq.
Mr. Trump also doubled down on his threat to stop U.S. foreign aid from going to countries that stood against his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the American embassy there from Tel Aviv.
On Latin American, he boasted that his administration has “imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.” He also vowed to keep open the detention center at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to work toward sending any captured terrorism suspects there in the future.
In a shift from past foreign policy speeches, the president made almost no reference to China. He also steered clear of delving into is policy plans for confronting Russia on the world stage, avoiding any mention of Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections.
Mr. Trump made no mention of pressure on his administration to level new sanctions against Russian officials and entities over the meddling allegations. His administration moved Monday to hold off on new sanctions — even while releasing a vast list of possible targets.
The president did, however, call on Congress to “end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.” And, he said America “must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and so powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else.”
“Perhaps someday in the future, there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons,” Mr. Trump said. “Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly.
Leading up to the State of the Union, critics said the president is dangerously flirting with the idea of nuclear war. “President Trump promotes security based on fear and luck which is both dangerous and reckless, said Beatrice Fihn, Executive Director of the Geneva, Switzerland-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
In a statement circulated to journalists just before Mr. Trump took to the rostrum on Tuesday night, Ms. Fihn said that “a new security policy with the goal of nuclear abolition is the only way to increase both real and perceived security for the United States and the rest of the world.”
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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