Kim Hong-Ji | Reuters
A sales assistant watches TV sets broadcasting a news report on North Korea’s nuclear test, in Seoul, January 6, 2016.
Geopolitical tensions heightened in recent weeks after North Korea launched ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan and tested a new type of high-thrust rocket engine. The potential deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system in South Koreasaw China retaliating against Seoul.
However, Cohen, who is chairman and CEO of the Cohen Group, said President Donald Trump has put together a good national security team. People such as Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are people who could offer good advice in dealing with the North Korea situation, he said.
It is then up to Trump on whether he would act on the advice he is given.
“If you look at the people you’ve put in there, mostly people in the military in the national security team, that’s good, because the military men are the last ones that want to go to war… So I’m encouraged, I think we need to give President Trump some time, and again this is new for him, he’s had no government experience. So things that you could say in the past don’t go over quite as well in that Oval Office,” Cohen said.
On U.S.-Russia relations, Cohen, who once expressed concerns about Trump, said the situation would not improve until the president clarifies his companies’ financial ties with Russia.
