[AP/Yonhap News Photo ]
US President-elect Donald Trump is expected to seek a tougher stance not only on North Korea, but also on China and other nations that support the communist nation, a US expert said Thursday.
"We know he believes China should be playing a larger role. I would expect him to be much tougher on China than the Obama administration. I would expect him to utilize new financial sanctions to a greater extent," said Troy Stangarone, a senior expert at the Korea Economic Institute.
"In the campaign, he suggested Iran needs to cut off its ties with North Korea. So I expect him to be tougher on other states that are believed to support the North Korean regime as well," he said during a discussion on Trump's policy on the Korean Peninsula.
Still, Trump would be more flexible toward new ideas, using his businessman skills to seek solutions, he said.
"I think the challenges he's going to face is that there are very limited options in terms of dealing with North Korea and he will find that," Stangarone said.'
In his 2000 book, "The America We Deserve," Trump advocated a surgical strike against the North's nuclear facility before it's too late. In this year's campaign, he said the North is China's problem to fix, though he also expressed a willingness to hold nuclear negotiations with the North's leader while eating hamburgers.
Trump has also called the North's leader a "madman," a "maniac" and a "total nut job," but he's also praised the young dictator, saying it is "amazing" for him to keep control of the country.
(Yonhap)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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