If North Korea test fires a short-range missile and the United States does not respond, does it make a noise?
That is the question the Trump administration is effectively testing as North Korea attempts to carry its past attempts to reduce economic sanctions, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"Its provocations don't appear to be working," according to the Journal. "The shock value from the North's military flourishes seems to be lost on President Trump, the key figure in the cash-strapped country's campaign to shed economic sanctions. Mr. Trump has so far maintained a consistent tolerance toward the North's short-range launches."
Kim Jong Un's regime is seeking to restart diplomatic talks with President Trump after firing a reported six short-range missile tests in the past three weeks as the U.S. has conducted training exercises with others in the region, according to the report.
"We see that a new test doesn't change the situation with negotiations at all," Ramon Pacheco Pardo, foreign affairs expert at the Institute for European Studies in Brussels, told the Journal. "Obviously less attention is being paid to each launch."
The Trump administration has noted Pyongyang has not tested a long-range missile or nuclear weapons since 2017.
"Provocations have worked for North Korea — they provoke, then come back to the negotiating table," ex-South Korea adviser Shin Beom-chul told the Journal.
Some in the region fear the Trump administration's laissez-faire approach will allow the development of short-range weapons that endanger Americans or allies in South Korea or Japan.
"The focus of the U.S. negotiations with North Korea has put too much emphasis on just the nuclear weapons," National University of Malaysia's Korea expert Hoo Chiew Ping told the Journal. "They actually forgot there are things like ballistic-missile systems."