The Daily Beast columnist Gordon Chang told Newsmax TV's "America Talks Live" on Monday the decision to cancel Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's trip to North Korea could be only a "minor setback," rather than a major rift.
"Well, this could be a minor setback, but I think the reason why we're in this place right now is because the North Koreans have not taken the opportunity to give up their weapons," Chang said. "Got to remember that President [Donald] Trump at that press conference after the summit in Singapore talked about giving Kim Jong Un, the North Korean ruler, a one-shot opportunity to do the right thing.
"Well, it's been months now and the North Koreans don't want to do the right thing. They'll make a few symbolic moves as they have, but they are not serious about giving up their weapons, and so President Trump, to his credit, changed course on Friday with that tweet that you read from."
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Chang added "we have not put that much pressure on China, there's a lot more than we can do . . . we could designate their four largest banks to be primary money laundering concerns," under a section of the Patriot Act.
"That would cut them off from the global financial system, that would rock the Chinese economy and probably end Xi Jinping's tenure as ruler of China."
Chang said he could list other options to deal with China for hours, concluding: "There's a lot more arsenal that we have not used yet."
When asked why, Chang said he thinks Trump "wanted to give the Chinese an opportunity to like do the right thing, like he gave to Kim Jong Un."
He also added Trump is attempting to change "four decades of foreign policy," and noted "foreign policy doesn't change that quickly."
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