In a surprising foreign policy pivot, President Trump told Bloomberg during an Oval Office interview that he would meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “if the circumstances were right.”
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said Monday in an interview with Bloomberg News. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.” It was not immediately clear what circumstances Trump considers “right.”
The US president added that “most political people would never say that,” regarding his willingness to meet with the reclusive Kim, “but I’m telling you under the right circumstances I would meet with him. We have breaking news.”
Kim’s regime, a source of heightened geopolitical tension over the past month, has repeatedly defied the US and international sanctions with continued development of its nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile program. It would mark the North Korean leader’s first summit: as Bloomberg adds, Kim has never met with a foreign leader since taking charge after his father’s death in 2011 and hasn’t left his isolated country.
In January, Trump vowed that he wouldn’t let North Korea develop a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, and North Korea has labeled American military moves in the region as acts of “intimidation and blackmail.” North Korea has continued to test missiles this year, and last weekend the communist country arrested a third US citizen.
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On a separate matter, Trump said he’s willing to raise the U.S. gas tax to fund infrastructure development and called the tax overhaul plan he released last week the beginning of negotiations.
“It’s something that I would certainly consider.”
Fix chimes in with another soundbite from Trump, according to which the president believes “one mistake he made was on healthcare.”
via http://ift.tt/2qwdRQb Tyler Durden