When President Trump told an interviewer last month that former president Barack Obama had warned him of a grave “military problem from a certain place,” there was little doubt that the place was North Korea.
And that was before the military dictatorship launched missiles in a perceived challenge to the new Trump administration or allegedly ordered a bizarre assassination in a busy international airport.
The threat from North Korea — nuclear-armed, impoverished and deeply suspicious of a potential U.S. attack — is the centerpiece of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Asia beginning Wednesday. It was also the main topic for Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s Asia trip last month — his first as the Pentagon chief.
