Republican presidential candidates on Sunday lashed out at President Barack Obama and his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is aspiring to succeed him, for the latest North Korean missile test which they say is the result of their “incompetence”.
“I think we have a president who is totally incompetent, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing. I think he has no idea what he’s doing. And our country is going to hell,” Donald Trump, the front runner Republican presidential candidate said ahead of the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
Trump said he would get on with China, and solve that problem. “China says they don’t have that good of control over North Korea. They have tremendous control,” he said.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who had an impressive performance in the Iowa Caucus and is being billed as the Republican establishment candidate, agreed with Trump that China does have a lot of influence over North Korea.
“And he (US President Barack Obama) should be leveraging our relationship with the Chinese to ensure that North Korea no longer has access to the resources that have allowed them to develop long range missiles already capable of reaching the west coast of the United States potentially,” he said.
Rubio also demanded that North Korea be declared a terrorist state.
“The launch from a nuclear North Korea is the direct result of the failures of the first Clinton administration. The Clinton administration led the world in relaxing sanctions against North Korea. Billions of dollars flowed into North Korea in exchange for promises not to build nuclear weapons.