President Donald Trump accused Russia on Wednesday of hurting a worldwide effort to crack down on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, noting that even China was now working with the U.S. to stop the regime’s military escalation.
“China is helping us and maybe Russia’s going through the other way and hurting what we’re getting,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Lou Dobbs when asked about the work to push back against North Korea’s nuclear escalation.
“I think we could have a good relationship,” Trump said about Russia. “I think that North Korean situation would be easier settled.”
Trump has made curbing North Korea’s nuclear program one of his key foreign policy goals since taking office. His administration has won a number of victories at the United Nations, with additional sanctions on the regime’s exports and its imports of oil approved by the Security Council this year. U.S. officials say that such sanctions will hinder North Korea’s ability to further their nuclear ambitions.
But both Russia and China have pushed back against further sanctions and military escalation by the U.S. and South Korea, instead calling for dialogue and a military freeze from both sides – a position the U.S has firmly rejected.
“If we had a good relationship with Russia, that would be a good thing,” Trump said more broadly.
In the interview, Trump also blamed past administrations for allowing the North Korean crisis to fester for so many years.
“We have to solve the North Korea problem. It’s a very big problem. It should never have been given to me. This should have been solved long before I came into office when it would have been easier to solve,” he said. “But it was given to me, and I get it solved. I solve problems.”
Trump will travel to Beijing in November, where he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.
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