The latest time North Korea’s aggressive missile testing created an international crisis, in April, Donald Trump’s strategy for dealing with it had two prongs:
- Boasting inaccurately that a fearsome American “armada” was steaming toward the North Korean coast. (The carrier group in question was actually sailing away from North Korea at the time the Trump administration was bragging about its fearsomeness.)
- Suggesting hopefully that maybe China would fix everything.
China has not fixed everything—the North just tested a missile that could possibly strike Alaska—and the president is upset. He also seems to be folding in his anger about the North Korea situation with his plans to launch an economically destabilizing trade war against Chinese steel.
Well, July Fourth was fun, wasn’t it? Back to this stuff, now.
