Trump's fiery, furious threats to 'totally destroy' North Korea might just work
President Donald Trump's bold approach to North Korea has horrified many and raised the issue of nuclear war into everyday conversation, but the unconventional tactic may work in a roundabout way, an expert on US-China relations and North Korea says.
Trump's fiery rhetoric and the administration's decision to make North Korea its top national security priority has "changed the momentum" on the issue, Yun Sun, a senior associate at the Stimson Center, a DC-based think tank, told Business Insider.
In recent months, North Korea has shocked the world by demonstrating it's likely just a few months from full nuclear capability.
President Donald Trump has responded to North Korea with escalating rhetoric, saying in August that the US would respond to further North Korean threats with "fire and fury." Last month, he stood in front of the United Nations and threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea if necessary. He has leaned more heavily on the prospect of military action than any president before.
While the dictatorship has yet to halt its nuclear program, Trump's rebukes of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and open flirtation with nuclear war appears to have pushed the international community towards action.
"If the criteria is North Korea stops its nuclear program, the data so far suggests that North Korea has not been stopped by real or rhetorical threats," said Sun.
But, if the criteria is to get China, North Korea's treaty ally and the nation responsible for 90% of its trade, to stop backing Pyongyang, Trump's threats have "worked and potentially could 'work' more," said Sun.
"No matter how much people don't like him, he has extracted more cooperation out of China than any of his predecessors on North Korea," Sun said of Trump.
So even though North Korea is unlikely to be frightened by Trump's sometimes obvious bluster, the intended audience for the threats may not be Kim.
A flurry of countries have cut or curbed ties with North Korea in recent weeks as the Trump administration has stepped up its approach towards Kim, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
Over the last 25 years, Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have attempted to curb North Korea's nuclear program through "strategic patience," a mix of sanctions, diplomacy, and aid dollars to feed the sometimes starving nation.
Despite these efforts, North Korea has continued its provocations and missile tests, culminating this year in two intercontinental ballistic missile launches, two missile launches over Japan, and a thermonuclear detonation in 2017 alone.
At best, previous administrations slowed North Korea's nuclear progress, but failed to stop it. Meanwhile Trump's threats and bluster appear to have whipped up a kind of urgency that UN sanctions and condemnations and previous administrations' diplomacy and "strategic patience" failed to do.
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