Bolton Slams Trump’s North Korea Policy Urging Stronger Action

(Bloomberg) -- Former National Security Advisor John Bolton tore into Donald Trump’s efforts to denuclearize North Korea as ineffective, saying that Kim Jong Un’s threat to the U.S. will only increase with time.

“Maybe this isn’t the popular thing to say -- but despite all the friendly notes and photo ops, North Korea isn’t our friend and never will be,” Bolton wrote in a letter Thursday seeking donations for his 2020 political action committee. “North Korea will never give up their nuclear weapons. Period.”

President Trump ousted the hawkish Bolton in September, saying in a tweet that “I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration.”

Trump has boasted that he’s established a rapport with Kim that will lead to North Korea giving up its nuclear arsenal. But the two countries have yet to agree on what would constitute the promised denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, let alone draw up a road map to achieve it.

Bolton said that the U.S.’s failure to act more decisively means North Korea will become more dangerous, eventually possessing nuclear weapons that can be delivered to American cities.

Negotiators from the U.S. and North Korea held talks for the first time in about eight months this month, with North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Myong Gil saying the U.S. arrived “empty-handed,” a point disputed by State Department officials.

Kim’s regime warned on Monday that North Korea could go on a “new path” if economic sanctions aren’t eased.

--With assistance from Justin Sink.

To contact the reporter on this story: David Wainer in New York at dwainer3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert

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