If you're to stupid to talk...

Trump on North Korea: 'Talking is not the answer'

By POLITICO STAFF

President Donald Trump on Wednesday expressed frustration that diplomatic efforts with North Korea are not yielding results, tweeting that "talking is not the answer!" after the reclusive country launched its latest missile test earlier this week.

“The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years,” he wrote. “Talking is not the answer!”

Trump didn’t explain how the U.S. has supposedly paid extortion funds to North Korea, but the U.S. has provided international aid assistance to the country in the past.

Despite Trump’s strong words on Wednesday, the president’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and defense secretary, Jim Mattis, have stressed that diplomacy and economic pressure applied to North Korea is the best way to deescalate the tension and push the North to denuclearize.

The president's tweet follows a White House statement issued Tuesday in which the president said “all options are on the table” in dealing with North Korea.

The rhetoric between the U.S. and North Korea has intensified this week after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan, a move seen as extremely provocative. The U.N. Security Council denounced the missile launch on Tuesday as “outrageous.”

Far from backing down, however, North Korean state media issued a warning Wednesday that the missile fired over Japan was “the first step of the military operation … in the Pacific and a meaningful prelude to containing Guam,” according to CNN.