WASHINGTON _ The White House ruled out talks with North Korea over its nuclear arsenal just days after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. was talking to North Korea "directly, through our own channels."
"Now is not the time to talk," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Monday. She added that the U.S. was interested solely in talks over freeing three U.S. citizens held by the reclusive regime.
That was in contrast to Tillerson's remarks over the weekend in Beijing, where he told reporters, "We can talk to them, we do talk to them directly" and that the U.S. has "a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang."
The White House statements were the latest sign that President Donald Trump and his top diplomat have different views on the best way to address North Korea's accelerating nuclear and ballistic missile programs. While Tillerson was heading back to the U.S. from China on Sunday, Trump said on Twitter that he'd told his "wonderful" secretary of state that "he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man," a reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
"Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!" Trump added.
The president later referred to diplomatic efforts by former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, saying in a Twitter posting that "being nice to Rocket Man hasn't worked in 25 years, why would it work now? Clinton failed, Bush failed, and Obama failed. I won't fail." Kim, 33, took over the leadership of North Korea in 2011 after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.
Sanders said the lack of talks doesn't mean an end to diplomacy. The U.S. has led two recent rounds of economic sanctions at the United Nations, and Sanders suggested similar efforts will continue.
"There's a difference between talking and putting diplomatic pressure," Sanders said. "We still support putting diplomatic pressure" on North Korea, she added.
Trump has threatened to destroy North Korea if provoked and repeatedly said military options are on the table. Tillerson is a chief architect of an initiative that seeks to use UN Security Council sanctions to choke North Korea's economy while pressing countries to stop accepting North Korean guest workers and close the regime's diplomatic outposts.
It's not the first time Trump and Tillerson have diverged _ or appeared to diverge _ publicly. Tillerson found himself contradicted by the president about an hour after the secretary of state called in June for a Saudi-led coalition to ease its "blockade" of Qatar. Soon after that event, Trump said he backed the Saudi effort because Qatar was historically "a funder of terrorism at a very high level." That crisis continues to fester.
Nor does the disagreement necessarily signal Tillerson's job is at risk. Asked directly whether Tillerson retains the president's confidence, spokeswoman Sanders said he does.
