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Trump blames Hillary Clinton for North Korea nuclear weapons program


Phantomboxe

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published: Sept 20, 2017

 

NEW YORK CITY – President Trump on Wednesday urged world leaders at the United Nations to thwart the "enormous security threat" from North Korea – even as he blamed his predecessors and previous political rival Hillary Clinton for Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. 

 

A day after he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if the U.S. was forced to defend itself or its Asian allies, Trump again called for tougher economic sanctions to tighten the financial pressure.

 

"We must all stand together and be accountable for implementing U.N. sanctions and resolutions in response to North Korea’s hostile and menacing actions," Trump said during a lunch meeting with African leaders.

 

In his speech Tuesday to the 193-member United Nations General Assembly, Trump denounced Pyongyang's "reckless" pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and taunted North Korea leader Kim Jong Un with a campaign-style nickname. "Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime," he said. 

 

After criticism from former Obama administration officials for his aggressive rhetoric, Trump took a shot at his Democratic challenger in the 2016 presidential election and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, for "allowing" North Korea to expand its nuclear program. 

 

"After allowing North Korea to research and build Nukes while Secretary of State (Bill C also), Crooked Hillary now criticizes," Trump tweeted Wednesday morning.

 

In an early morning tweet storm, Trump also retweeted another critic of Clinton and his predecessor Barack Obama. "It is the height of hypocrisy. Obama and Clinton in effect gave nuclear weapons to North Korea by their policy of appeasement," that tweet said.

 

Trump's tweets came after Clinton and political analysts expressed concern Trump's rhetoric in the U.N. speech will make a diplomatic solution to North Korea more difficult.   Speaking on CBS' Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, Clinton described the speech as "very dark, dangerous, not the kind of message that the leader of the free world should be delivering."

 

John Kerry, who succeeded Clinton as secretary of State, told MSNBC that Trump's "childish" rhetoric pushes away potential diplomatic allies. "You have to ask yourself, is America safer because of 'Rocket Man'?'" Kerry said. "Did we bring anybody to the table as a consequence of that language? You don't give a speech at the United Nations to talk to your base."

 

What's more, the North Korea nuclear program stretches back to the 1950s, and began in earnest after the 1989 collapse of the communist nation's major economic patron, the Soviet Union. Over the last two decades, it has grown despite the efforts of presidents from both parties – Clinton, Republican George W. Bush, and Obama – to lobby other countries to pressure the North Koreans to give up nuclear weapons development.

 

As his predecessors did, Trump has lobbied China to rein in the nuclear ambitions of its neighbor North Korea. 

 

Nikki Haley, Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, defended his speech on Wednesday, telling ABC's Good Morning America it making North Korea's threats a major topic of conversation at the international meeting. 

 

"I was talking to a president of an African country yesterday and he actually cited 'Rocket Man' back to me," she said.  "This is a way of getting people to talk about (Kim Jong-un), but every other international community now is referring to him as 'Rocket Man.'"

 

Yet North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, speaking with reporters Wednesday after arriving at the United Nations, likened Trump's speech to "the sound of a dog barking."

"If he was thinking he could scare us with the sound of a dog barking, that's really a dog dream," Ri said.

As for the "Rocket Man" comment, he said, "I feel sorry for his (Trump's) aides."

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/20/trump-blames-hillary-clinton-north-korea-nuclear-weapons-program/684183001/

 

 

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