WASHINGTON — President Trump won’t be checking out the demilitarized zone on the border of South and North Korea during his trip to Asia next month.
“The president is not going to visit the DMZ,” a Trump administration official told reporters Tuesday.
“We just had Secretary Mattis there last week,” the official said. “We had Vice President Pence there earlier this year. Secretary Tillerson was there. It’s becoming a little bit of a cliché, frankly.”
Trump leaves Friday for a 12-day Asia trip with stops in five nations: China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea and the Philippines.
One of the White House’s chief objectives abroad is working with allies to stop North Korea’s continued nuclear weapons threats.
Trump hasn’t shied away from heated rhetoric against North Korea and had even threatened “fire and fury.”
Aside from being a “cliché,” the White House also cited scheduling difficulties for the president.
“There’s not enough time in the schedule,” the official said, declining to speak on the record. Instead, Trump will visit Camp Humphreys in South Korea to talk with US troops.
“No president has visited Camp Humphreys and we thought that that made more sense in terms of his messaging,” the official said