Update | US says building ‘global coalition’ to subdue North Korea a day before Trump-Xi summit

The US is building a “global coalition” to subdue North Korea, a US Department of State official said today, following the latest missile test by China’s neighbour and traditional ally.

Susan Thornton, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, made the comment at a briefing on tomorrow’s meeting between US President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping.

Calling yesterday’s missile test by North Korea “Illegal,” Thornton said: “Patience has basically come to an end. We are looking for an action-focused, results-oriented approach. We are going to be trying to cooperate with allies and partners in a global coalition to try to solve this problem in an urgent way that we haven’t really taken up before.”

North Korea’s military provocation was first on a list of items Trump and Xi will discuss when they meet at Mar-a-Lago, the US leader’s seaside resort in Palm Beach, Florida. The two presidents are scheduled to arrive in Palm Beach tomorrow for talks aimed at setting “a new course for US-China relations for the next 40-50 years,” Thornton said.

“If you’re going to rely on sanctions and enhancing deterrents [to undercut North Korea’s military provocations], it has to be pretty multilateral and comprehensive, and you can’t have China undermining efforts,” said Richard Bush, director of the Brookings Institution’s Centre for East Asia Policy Studies.