Pompeo’s Nokor trip called off

Doing childish thing President Donald Trump draws during a visit with a group of children to the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. AP WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday he has directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to delay a planned trip to North Korea, citing insufficient progress on denuclearization.

Trump put some blame on Beijing, saying he does not believe China is helping “because of our much tougher Trading stance.”

The surprise announcement appeared to mark a concession by the president to domestic and international concerns that his prior claims of world-altering progress on the peninsula had been strikingly premature.

“I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Trump tweeted Friday, barely two months after his June meeting with the North’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

The trip would have been Pompeo’s fourth to North Korea and the second since a historic summit between Trump and Kim.

Trump’s comment followed a report issued Monday by the International Atomic Energy Agency outlining “grave concern” about the North’s nuclear program. It came a day after Pompeo appointed Stephen Biegun, a senior executive with the Ford Motor Co., to be his special envoy for North Korea and said he and Biegun would visit next week.

The State Department never confirmed details of the trip, but it had been expected that Pompeo would be in Pyongyang for at least several hours Monday, according to several diplomatic sources familiar with the plan.

Trump also stepped up his rhetoric against China, which has grown harsher as November congressional elections approach, with the world’s top two economies now embroiled in an escalating trade war.

“Additionally, because of our much tougher Trading stance with China, I do not believe they are helping with the process of denuclearization as they once were (despite the UN Sanctions which are in place),” Trump said.

In another tweet, the President added Pompeo would still head to North Korea “in the near future,” saying this would likely occur when the US-China trading relationship is “resolved.”

“In the meantime I would like to send my warmest regards and respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!” Trump said.