Donald Trump: Pressure China to Control North Korea’s Developing Nuclear Weapon Program

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has been critical of North Korea during the talks of the Iran deal and nuclear weapons, reminding Americans to be concerned about North Korea’s nuclear weapon program. In an interview with 60 Minutes’s Scott Pelley, Trump said America is “going to have to do something at some point.”

CNN recently reported that Secretary of State John Kerry said he didn’t think economic sanctions against North Korea would work as the sanctions had with Iran to deter developing a nuclear weapon program:

Speaking Wednesday at a joint press conference with South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Kerry said the imposition of sanctions against Iran, which also has aspirations as a nuclear power, influenced Tehran to change its direction and end their isolation from the international community. But he said Pyongyang’s “almost total absence of a legitimate economy” meant that the same strategy may not work with North Korea.

Pelley questioned Trump, “You would drop a bomb on their nuclear reactor?”

“I would do something. You have to do something about North Korea. Now what I would do is, I would make China respect us because China has extreme control over North Korea. And I would say, “China, you better go in there and you better do something because economically it could cost China.”

Pelley asked Trump if China would listen to him since they don’t listen to the President of the United States.

“They’re going to listen to me,” Trump vowed. “Just like I have the Chinese banks in my buildings, they listen to me, they respect me. China has almost complete control over North Korea. China will do that. And if they don’t do that, they have to suffer economically because we have the engine that makes China work. You know, without the United States or without China sucking out all our money and our jobs, China would collapse in about two minutes.”

Trump went on to explain how he wants to rebuild America.

“Our country’s been decimated. We have spent so much money in the Middle East and other places. We—our roads are falling apart, our bridges are falling apart. Everything’s falling apart. We have to rebuild our country.”

“This sounds great.” Pelley asked, “How are you going to pay for it?

“We’re going to absolutely be able to pay for it,” Trump responded. “My economy will expand so rapidly—we’re going to take jobs back from other countries. And we will be able to pay for it.”