WASHINGTON (CN) – There will be no ‘bloodying’ of North Korea’s nose, state department nominees told a senate committee Thursday, but tougher sanctions on countries refusing to align with the U.S. posture on North Korea continues to be a high priority for the Trump administration.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee met Thursday to confirm Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, and Andrea Thompson, nominee for under secretary of state for arms control and international security.
An aggressive U.S. public stance towards Pyongyang, lawmakers acknowledged, places pressure on Thornton and Thompson to continue soothing tensions between Washington and North Korea.
At a U.N. General Assembly meeting in September, the president vowed to “totally destroy” North Korea if the U.S. is “forced to defend itself or its allies.”
The vow was followed by several weeks of tense rhetoric between the president and the North Korean government.
In November, Trump and the regime duked it out on Twitter, with the president derisively calling North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “Little Rocket Man,” and the Korean Central News Agency, the nation’s mouthpiece, referring to Trump as a “dotard” before labeling his then-pending trip to Asia as “nothing but a business trip by a warmonger to enrich the monopolies of the U.S. defense industry.”
Curiosity over the intensity of U.S. posture toward North Korea was stoked in January when nominee for U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Victor Cha, abruptly withdrew his nomination.
Multiple media outlets reported Cha’s withdrawal was due to his objections over the administration’s consideration of a “bloody nose” approach to North Korea.
Both the State Department and the White House denied the report.
Thornton and Thompson repeated these denials Thursday, telling Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., there is no preemptive or “bloody nose” strategy under consideration.
“Is that your understanding [of the White House ‘s official stance?]” Shaheen asked Thornton.
“That is my understanding, yes, senator,” Thornton said.
Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, who attended a closed hearing with administration officials, agreed.
“We were told clearly by the administration people, - as high up as they go - there is no such thing as a ‘bloody nose’ strategy. They’ve never talked about it,” Risch said.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis also denied the strategy last month.
Senators appeared reassured by the testimony and David Solimini, a fellow at the Truman National Security Project, a defense and diplomacy think tank in Washington, D.C., told Courthouse News Thursday he too was confident Thompson and Thornton’s experience is a boon for the state department.
Though his confidence is tempered, he said.
“I am very concerned that more than a year into his term, [Trump] still doesn’t have a full team focused on North Korea,” Solimini said. “[He] still has not chosen an ambassador to South Korea, where tens of thousands of U.S. troops are stationed across the border with the North.”
A strike against North Korea would be “unbelievably risky,” he said. “Thankfully we don’t need to start that war. Nuclear deterrence has worked … and it can continue to work if we remain in lock step with our allies.”
