WASHINGTON—President Trump said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is canceling his trip to North Korea planned for next week due to a lack of progress in nuclear talks with Pyongyang.

“I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Mr. Trump said on Twitter. </s> WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he had canceled a planned trip to North Korea by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, saying progress toward the U.S. goal of a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was too slow.

"I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Trump said on Twitter. (Reporting by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Steve Orlofsky) </s> US President Donald Trump said Friday that he has called off Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's trip to North Korea that had been scheduled for next week, on grounds that insufficient progress is being made in negotiations between the two countries.

"I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Trump said on Twitter. </s> President Donald Trump says he has directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to delay a trip to North Korea, claiming there has been insufficient progress on denuclearisation.

The president tweeted that he does not believe Beijing is helping with the effort to rein in North Korea because of stepped-up pressure by the US on trade with China.

Mr Pompeo has appointed a senior executive with the Ford Motor Company to be his special envoy for North Korea, and said the two would visit next week.

President Trump says he has asked Mr Pompeo "not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula".

Some independent assessments suggest that North Korea has actually been increasing its nuclear activity. </s> Washington: US president Donald Trump on Friday announced the cancellation of his top diplomat's upcoming visit to North Korea, while taking a swipe at China over efforts to disarm the nuclear state.

"I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula," Trump said in a tweet.

"Additionally, because of our much tougher trading stance with China, I do not believe they are helping with the process of denuclearisation as they once were (despite the UN sanctions which are in place)," Trump said. </s> President Donald Trump on Friday announced on Twitter that he had asked his secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to cancel a planned trip to North Korea because there had not been enough progress in denuclearization talks so far.

Trump's tweets also indicated that he holds China responsible in part for the lack of progress. "I do not believe they are helping with the process of denuclearization as they once were," Trump wrote, and claimed the shortage of help was "because of our much tougher Trading stance with China."

The Trump administration is currently engaged in an escalating trade war with China that was launched earlier this summer, when the president announced unilateral tariffs on Chinese imports. China responded by imposing retaliatory tariffs on American products, which prompted Trump to announce that even more tariffs would be put in place.

The latest round of tariffs went into effect this week, despite negotiations that were held in Washington between the U.S. and China aimed at resolving the crisis, which has roiled international markets.

Trump said in his tweets Friday that talks with North Korea would be put on hold until trade issues with China were resolved. The State Department did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

In addition to the escalating trade war with China, Trump's decision Friday likely also reflects his reportedly growing frustration with the media coverage of his administration's diplomatic efforts with North Korea, which have so far achieved little progress.

A new report this week from the the International Atomic Energy Agency said the IAEA had "grave concern" over what it called "the continuation and further development of the DPRK's [North Korea's] nuclear program and related statements by the DPRK."

Evidence strongly suggests that North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear capabilities, despite a joint statement in June from Trump and North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un, who met at a summit in Singapore, to "work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

The decision to cancel Pompeo's trip appears to have been made abruptly, coming just a day after Pompeo announced it would happen. It also came after Trump had reportedly sent a letter to Kim last week, urging him to stop taking steps that threaten to erase the diplomatic goodwill created by the Singapore summit.

The cancellation also raises questions about what the State Department's newly appointed special representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, is expected to do next.

On Thursday, Pompeo called Biegun's appointment "a very timely moment for Steve to join the team and come on board," because "he and I will be traveling to North Korea next week to make further diplomatic progress towards our objective."

— CNBC's Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report. </s> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday abruptly canceled his top diplomat’s planned trip to North Korea, publicly acknowledging for the first time that his effort to get Pyongyang to denuclearize had stalled since his summit with North Korea’s leader.Trump partly blamed China for his insufficient progress with North Korea and suggested that talks with Pyongyang, led so far by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, could be on hold until after Washington resolved its bitter trade dispute with Beijing.

It was a dramatic shift of tone for Trump, who had previously hailed his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a success and said the North Korean nuclear threat was over, despite no real sign Pyongyang was willing to give up its nuclear weapons.

“I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Trump wrote in a series of messages on Twitter.

Negotiations have all but deadlocked since the June summit in Singapore. Pompeo has pressed for tangible steps toward North Korea’s abandonment of its nuclear arsenal while Pyongyang is demanding that Washington first make concessions of its own.

Trump’s statement came just a day after Pompeo said he would again visit North Korea and would take his new U.S. special representative, Stephen Biegun, with him in an attempt to break the stalemate.

But Trump asked Pompeo not to go to North Korea during a Friday afternoon meeting at the White House, a senior White House official said.

Many key officials learned of Trump’s decision by seeing the crawl across a television screen, some of them during a meeting to discuss U.S.-North Korea negotiations, two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some U.S. intelligence and defense officials had considered Pompeo’s latest trip to be premature and said the prospects for significant progress appeared dim.

Pompeo, who would have been making his second visit to Pyongyang since the summit, had not been expected to meet Kim this time, the State Department said on Thursday.

Trump put some of the onus on China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner and a linchpin in the diplomatic effort, for his decision to scrap Pompeo’s trip.

“Because of our much tougher Trading stance with China, I do not believe they are helping with the process of denuclearization as they once were (despite the UN Sanctions which are in place),” Trump tweeted.

“Secretary Pompeo looks forward to going to North Korea in the near future, most likely after our Trading relationship with China is resolved,” Trump wrote. “In the meantime I would like to send my warmest regards and respect to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!”

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Trump defended his approach, saying he believed North Korea had taken specific steps toward denuclearization. He said he and Kim had “great chemistry” and would “most likely” meet again.

Kelly Magsamen a former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian affairs now at the Center for American Progress think tank, said Trump was undermining his leverage with Kim as well as that of Pompeo and his new envoy.

“It’s fine to not send the Secretary due to lack of progress, but don’t then also talk about how you are eager to meet with KJU and how China is thwarting you,” she tweeted.

Christopher Hill, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea who led past failed negotiations with North Korea, tweeted: “Looks like @realDonaldTrump has begun to worry about #NorthKorea intentions. Good decision especially if otherwise Pompeo would have returned empty handed.”

Kim made a broad, vague commitment in Singapore to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula but has given no sign of a willingness to give up his nuclear arsenal unilaterally.

But intermittent talks since have made little headway, with the two sides apparently far apart on the fundamental issue of denuclearization and the U.S. demand for this before North Korea sees any relief from tough international sanctions.

On his last visit to Pyongyang, in July, Pompeo left saying progress had been made, only for North Korea within hours to denounce his “gangster-like demands.” He did not meet with Kim on that trip, although he did on his first two visits, which took place before the summit.

U.S. officials have been trying to persuade North Korea to detail the extent of its nuclear arsenal and the locations of its weapons, something Pyongyang had always refused to do in past failed rounds of talks.

Some analysts suggested Trump’s cancellation of the Pompeo trip may also be a negotiating ploy. In May, Trump announced he was calling off his planned summit with Kim, citing Pyongyang’s “open hostility,” only to reverse himself eight days later.

Trump’s cancellation of Pompeo’s trip follows two days of mid-level U.S.-China trade talks in Washington that ended with no sign of progress toward resolving a deepening trade war between the world’s two largest economies and no plans for more talks in the near term. </s> President Donald Trump has received what the White House said is a "very warm, very positive letter" from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, requesting a follow-up meeting with Trump after the summit in Singapore earlier this year.

"The primary purpose of the letter was to request and look to schedule another meeting with the president," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at the press briefing Monday. It was a request, she said, "which we are open to and already in the process of coordinating."

Talk of another Trump-Kim meeting initially seemed like an about-face for Trump, following the president's abrupt decision in late August to cancel a planned trip to North Korea by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

At the time, Trump tweeted, "I have asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to go to North Korea, at this time, because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Asked by reporters on Monday what had changed in the three weeks since Trump canceled Pompeo's trip, Sanders cited a recent parade in Pyongyang. The annual parade has traditionally featured a display of intercontinental ballistic missiles, an obvious nod to North Korea's nuclear weapons program. This year, however, there were reportedly no ICBMs at the parade.

"The recent parade in North Korea, for once, was not about their nuclear arsenal," Sanders said, adding that the letter from Kim was "further evidence of progress" in the Trump administration's goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

But there are still serious issues standing in the way of further progress on North Korea. Notably, a new report from NBC News on Monday featured an assessment from intelligence officials that Kim is indeed still making nuclear weapons.

Citing U.S. intelligence officials, NBC also reported that North Korea is escalating its efforts to hide certain nuclear facilities, possibly to keep satellite images from revealing activity taking place there. The country is also moving nuclear warheads between various facilities, according to the officials.

The hardening intelligence assessment comes less than three months after Trump held a historic summit with Kim in Singapore in June, after which the president tweeted, "There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea." </s> FARGO, N.D. — President Donald Trump says he's expecting get a letter in the coming days that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is sending him through Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Trump tells reporters traveling with him on Air Force One that Kim's recent overtures amount to "a very positive statement what he said about me and also what he said about he wants to denuclearize during the Trump administration."

South Korean officials who met with Kim this week say they forwarded a message from Trump and that Kim gave them a message to deliver to Trump. They're not discussing the contents of the messages.

Just two weeks ago, Trump called off a planned trip by Pompeo to North Korea. Trump cited insufficient progress by the Kim on his commitment to denuclearizing.
U.S. President Donald Trump asks his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cancel a planned trip to North Korea, citing the country's insufficient progress in denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.