The SMH argues that the success of Mr Trump's Asian tour will be judged by whether he can forge and maintain the international will to pressure Kim Jong-un to return to the negotiating table.
The SMH says that upon winning government, US President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and positioning on the region has been at times incoherent, at times dangerously inflammatory and his threats to rain "fire and fury" upon North Korea only heightened the sense that the horrifying spectre of nuclear war was closer than it had been in a generation.
During the speech to South Korea's National Assembly, Mr Trump said, "The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face,"
Mr Trump called upon all nations "including China and Russia, to fully implement UN Security Council resolutions, downgrade diplomatic relations with the regime, and sever all ties of trade and technology".
The SMH argues that in the long run the success or failure of Mr Trump's Asian tour will be judged by whether he can forge and maintain the international will – buttressed by the US, China and Russia – to pressure Kim Jong-un to return to the negotiating table with a view to freezing and eventually abandoning his development of nuclear weapons.
