Trump ‘Appreciates’ China Over North Korea in Passive-Aggressive Tweet: ‘At Least I Know China Tried!’

Aidan McLaughlinJun 20th, 2017, 3:32 pm
 

President Donald Trump took to his favored social media platform on Tuesday to note that while he “greatly appreciate[s] the efforts of President Xi and China to help with North Korea,” attempts to cool relations between the U.S. and the hermit kingdom have “not worked out.”

The tweet appears to be something of a passive aggressive jab at China and its president, Xi Jinping, who in the first months of Trump’s presidency was working with the White House to address an increasingly belligerent North Korea.

Xi met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in April, and the two leaders appeared to develop a good rapport, despite U.S. officials criticizing Beijing for not putting enough pressure on North Korea in response to Kim Jong Un’s nuclear program.

In an interview with the Financial Times from April, Trump said that “China has great influence over North Korea.”

“And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t,” he continued. “If they do, that will be very good for China, and if they don’t, it won’t be good for anyone.”

Now, it appears Trump has given up hope that China would help soothe tensions between Washington D.C. and Pyongyang. His tweet comes in the wake of the death of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died on Monday after he spent more than a year imprisoned in North Korea for stealing a poster.

Foreign policy Twitter kicked into overdrive in response to Trump’s passive aggressive missive, which could signal a large shift in relations with Beijing:

[image via screengrab]

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Aidan McLaughlin is the Editor in Chief of Mediaite. Send tips via email: aidan@mediaite.com. Ask for Signal. Follow him on Twitter: @aidnmclaughlin