Condoleezza Rice: Trump team ‘doing as well as anybody could’ on North Korea

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday said the Trump administration is “doing as well as anybody could” as it grapples with the budding North Korean nuclear program. 

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Rice responded to a question from Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.

“I think they’re doing as well as anybody could; this is just a really hard problem,” Rice said.

“I think they are trying to incentivize the Chinese to change their view of this. The Chinese have always been more worried about the collapse of the regime than a nuclear North Korea.” 

{mosads}Rice, who has been making the rounds on cable news to promote her new book, said Tuesday that the Trump administration is putting pressure on the Chinese to help combat North Korean’s nuclear ambitions.

“I think what the Trump Administration is trying to say to the Chinese. ‘All right, that’s not your choice anymore. Your choice is do the tough things with the North Koreans or we will have to do something,’” Rice, who served under former President George W. Bush, said.

“Because no American president is going to let a reckless, slightly unhinged North Korean leader get a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States.”

President Trump last week said he would meet be “honored” to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “under the right circumstances.”

North Korea has been a looming foreign policy challenge in the early days of the Trump administration, as Pyongyang conducted two failed ballistic missile tests last month.

“And so they’re trying to change the Chinese calculus. That’s really an important thing to do,” Rice added.