Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement regarding North Korea: “We’re going to continue our peaceful pressure campaign as I have described it, working with allies, working with China as well to see if we can bring the regime in Pyongyang to the negotiating table.”

In a tweet on August 30, President Donald Trump conveyed a different message regarding North Korea calling for an end to diplomatic talks, stating via Twitter: “The U.S. has been talking to North Korea, and paying them extortion money, for 25 years. Talking is not the answer!”

Regarding the Trump administration specifically, there is no consistent message signaling a gameplan to North Korea given the two statements above, both taken in the same week.  However, the U.S. has a long history spanning decades trying to figure out how one thing: how to peacefully stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Since the death of his father Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un has been the leader of North Korea.  At 33 years old, Kim Jong Un is a young leader.  He is also continuing in his father’s footsteps by adding to the North Korean nuclear weapons program, despite condemnation from around the globe, prompting the statement made above by President Trump.

“I think that the Trump Administration response has been fair, at best,” Professor Will Walldorf, a professor of the International Affairs Department at Wake Forest University, said.  

Walldorf explains that the Trump administration expectedly reacted to the continuation of the North Korean nuclear weapons program with the threat of military action, but the “bombastic” language used by President Trump regarding North Korea is what is further inflaming the situation.

“My concern is with how much Trump is using bombastic, threatening language.  I worry that it could create so much fear in North Korea that we are going to attack that North Korea launches a preemptive nuclear strike, or that Trump may find himself trapped by his own words into tough action that leads to a nuclear exchange and the death of millions potentially.”

Reynolds Junior Savannah Beaman also shares Professor Walldorf’s concern over the growing tension between the U.S.

“One of them [President Trump and Kim Jong Un] is going to say the wrong thing,” Beaman said.  

Despite the ambience of anxiety surrounding this topic, Professor Walldorf emphasizes the need of international cooperation that would ideally be devoid of any violent measure.

“We [the U.S.] should try to work out a deal using China and other regional actors to get North Korea to moderate its behavior…We need to be ready then to perhaps impose new sanctions and make sure North Korea knows we will respond (with nuclear weapons if necessary) against any country in the world.”

Despite the many uncertainties regarding North Korea, this is for certain: this tension is a trans-generational weight that will probably be placed on the backs of this rising generation to solve.

“If the [North Korean] regime becomes unstable someday, your generation will be dealing with how to manage that volatile situation made all the worse by the fact that North Korea has nuclear weapons.”