“If China decides to help, that would be great,” President Donald Trump tweeted about North Korea. “If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A.” | Getty Trump threatens action on North Korea

President Donald Trump expressed “great confidence” Thursday in how China would deal with North Korea, but he said the United States would step in if needed.

“I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea,” the president tweeted Thursday morning. “If they are unable to do so, the U.S., with its allies, will! U.S.A.”


The tweet comes the morning after Trump backed off a campaign pledge to name China a currency manipulator, saying aggravating Beijing on the currency issue might jeopardize their North Korea talks. “They’re not currency manipulators,” he told The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

His post is also the latest dispatch Trump has blasted from his Twitter account about China and North Korea following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Mar-a-Lago last week. North Korea launched a ballistic missile earlier this month, prompting the Pentagon to send the USS Carl Vinson and its battle group to waters off the Korean Peninsula over the weekend. Trump and Xi spoke again this week, discussing "the situation on the Korean Peninsula” by phone Tuesday night, according to a readout from the Chinese government.

“Xi said that China sticks to the target of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and that China is committed to peace and stability of the peninsula,” the readout says.

Trump described the chat in Wednesday tweets as “a very good call … concerning the menace of North Korea,” referring to North Korean dictator King Jong-un. The White House’s readout characterized it in far fewer details: “It was a productive call.”

The president had already made clear he would get involved in North Korea if he didn't think China was doing enough. He warned in a pair of tweets Tuesday that “North Korea is looking for trouble.”

“If China decides to help, that would be great,” the post continued. “If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A.”

Trump also suggested that he used trade relations between the U.S. and China as leverage to compel China to respond to North Korea's nuclear tests.

“I explained to the President of China that a trade deal with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem!” he tweeted Tuesday.