Is Donald Trump threatening to start a war with North Korea? Because that is kind of what this sounds like.

Courtesy of the Financial Times:

Donald Trump has warned that the US will take unilateral action to eliminate the nuclear threat from North Korea unless China increases pressure on the regime in Pyongyang. 

In an interview with the Financial Times, the US president said he would discuss the growing threat from Kim Jong Un’s nuclear programme with Xi Jinping when he hosts the Chinese president at his Florida resort this week, in their first meeting. 

“China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t,” Mr Trump said in the Oval Office. “If they do, that will be very good for China, and if they don’t, it won’t be good for anyone.” 

But he made clear that he would deal with North Korea with or without China’s help. Asked if he would consider a “grand bargain” — where China pressures Pyongyang in exchange for a guarantee that the US would later remove troops from the Korean peninsula — Mr Trump said: “Well if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you.” 

"It won't be good for anyone." Yes, I would agree that if Trump does anything "unilaterally" about North Korea it most definitely will not be good for anyone.

Hey look I get the frustration at North Korea and that human buttplug leading their country.

I do not think there are too many people in this world that could hide their joy at seeing the whole place go up in a giant mushroom cloud.

However threatening to "eliminate the threat" on our own in a country essentially dangling from China's nutsack is like a drunk guy in biker bar yelling that wearing leather makes you a pussy.

We are all kinds of bad ass strolling into sand covered third world countries without indoor plumbing acting like John Wayne on steroids, but China is definitely not that kind of place.

Here is how one expert tried to excuse Trump's shit talking:

“What President Trump is trying to do here is to press the Chinese hard by warning them what comes next if they don’t help or join with the US to deal with this problem,” said Dennis Wilder, a former CIA China analyst who later served as the top White House Asia aide to George W Bush. 

So in other words Trump is trying to intimidate a country with over a billion people and the world's largest military force into stepping up before he does something crazy.

I know a guy who expressed admiration for Donald Trump because he "Did not talk like a politician, and just said whatever was on his mind." Yeah, well in times like this you can understand why you might prefer somebody who has an internal filter and knows what the word "diplomacy" means.