Cory GardnerVerified account

THREAD: When I was sworn in to the Senate in 2015, I referred to Kim Jong Un as the “Forgotten Maniac”. At the time, few were paying attention to the grave threat posed by NK to the US and our allies, while the Obama Admin. followed a failing policy of “strategic patience”. 1/11

As Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee focused on East Asia policy, I held a series of hearings and began working on legislation that would require mandatory sanctions on the regime and would set parameters for U.S. policy toward North Korea. 2/11

Per U.S. law, the President must demand that NK make significant progress toward complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization & comply with all UN Security Council Resolutions before any sanctions relief or normalization of relations with NK can be considered. 4/11

But we haven’t received any of these commitments from North Korea to date. 5/11

The maximum pressure campaign that my legislation started, and President Trump has continued, has brought us to this point today. Now we need to keep up the pressure and negotiate from a position of strength. 6/11