North calls Trump policy ‘empty’ and ‘ineffective’

North Korea has released what appears to be its first-ever statement on the Donald Trump administration’s policy toward the country, in a review published on the state-run Rodong Sinmun on Saturday that criticizes Trump’s “maximum pressure and engagement” policy as being one of “strategic impatience.”

“The Trump administration is following in the footsteps of the Barack Obama administration, which pursued the failed ‘strategic patience’ policy,” said the review, written by an individual named Ri Kyong Su. “Trump’s ‘maximum pressure and engagement’ policy is in fact a ‘strategic impatience’ policy.”

The review added that the policy “is nothing but another useless and hostile policy toward the DPRK that has been rebranded ‘maximum pressure and engagement,” using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Titled, “The United States Must Pay Attention to the Indomitable Will of Our People,” the review compares the policies of the George W. Bush, Obama and Trump administrations.

It pointed out while Obama’s North Korea policies were “a mix of threats and sanctions and strategic patience until we succumb,” Trump’s policies are more about “placing stronger threats and sanctions to turn over our regime in a short span of time. “The difference,” it said, “if there is one, is its sustainability and rashness.”

The review criticized the Trump administration for threatening the regime with “military drills for a nuclear war” in March, pointing to the Foal Eagle-Key Resolve exercises, the USS Carl Vinson strike group of the U.S. Navy and American air strikes on a Syrian airbase.

The review added that the Bush administration “also drank from the bitter cup of failure,” emphasizing that the administration, which named North Korea as part of the “axis of evil,” left the stage after starting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and leaving North Korea as a state “in possession of nuclear weapons.

“This proves that aggression and impatience do not work when it comes to dealing with us,” the review said. “If the Trump administration cannot realize this, we will help it realize it.

“The United States’ empty boast about a possibility of war in April has lost its power. Trump has shown the world how empty and ineffective his policy toward the DPRK is. Even if the United States starts another rumor of war in May, nobody will believe it now.”

BY CHA SE-HYEON, KIM ROK-HWAN [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]