The Guardian warned against playing to the gallery on the Korean impasse. “As last week’s UN Security Council vote on sanctioning North Korea has shown, there is an international consensus on the dangers presented by Pyongyang’s behaviour. But the nationalist ideology President Trump espouses was yet again made clear, not least with the emphasis he put on “strong, sovereign, independent nations”, rather than on the body of universal values that the UN is meant to uphold. President Trump wants the UN to put pressure on North Korea, but he’s brought little clarity as to the wider strategy he contemplates. Threats and grandstanding are just bluster, not policy. Crises require a deftness the Trump administration has failed to demonstrate. An “America First” approach runs counter to the UN’s multilateralism. His credo could be summed up by his claim that nations acting in their own self-interest create a more stable world. The question is what rules would states operate under? Not the UN’s, Trump’s response appeared to suggest. The president may want to speak of “principled realism”, but he is a reckless and dangerous leader, sitting, alas, in a most powerful position.”

The Washington Post opined that the attrition between Washington and Pyongyang has become a game of chicken to see who can hurl the harshest and most absurd rhetorical insults. “President Trump appears to have embarked on a two-track approach to pressuring North Korea into restraining its nuclear weapons and missile programmes. The first track is the ever-tightening economic sanctions that, if properly implemented, could further isolate North Korea from world finance and trade.”

Predicting that the US will toughen its approach towards Kim in the coming weeks, the paper editorialised, “The first track, economic sanctions, took another step forward when Trump announced what are potentially the toughest US economic punishments yet, not just going after Pyongyang’s enterprises and people, but also attempting to isolate third parties that do business with North Korea. This extends beyond the latest sanctions resolution of the UN. Security Council and could ultimately shrink the grey zone where North Korea has long evaded sanctions. Foreign banks and others that do business with North Korea will face a risk of becoming radioactive in the eyes of the United States, and that may cause them to think twice.”

Highlighting the role of China in the deadlock, it wrote, “Reports from China suggest that, while reluctant to sign up with Trump’s broader sanctions regime, Beijing has ordered the agreed-upon financial sanctions against North Korea to be implemented, and China’s Central Bank has demanded no new accounts be opened and older ones be wound up. The role of China, the chief benefactor of North Korea that is often opaque and ambivalent about the Kim Jong Un regime, can be frustrating and inconclusive. But sanctions and coercive diplomacy, however difficult, offer the best available approach, given the unappealing alternatives. Kim’s dynastic rule emphasises self-reliance and plays off enemies abroad; to change his behaviour will be extremely difficult and take time.”

Singapore-based The Straits Times wants the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to play a role to diffuse the crisis. “Asean has deftly maintained robust communication channels with North Korea, while deepening its strategic ties with South Korea, China and Japan. This puts the regional body in an auspiciously unique position to play a constructive and consequential role in the brewing conflict in North-east Asia. Notwithstanding the inherent institutional weaknesses of Asean, including its notoriously inefficient consensus-based decision-making principle, South-east Asian countries can and should step up to the challenge. There is no room for strategic complacency. A full-scale conflict in the Korean peninsula would have an unimaginably adverse impact on all regional states, including in South-east Asia. Thus, it is high time for Asean to multilaterally, as well as bilaterally [through its members], facilitate North Korea’s return to the negotiating table along with other major players.”