North Korea could impose significant demands in exchange for releasing Pvt. 2nd Class Travis King, the U.S. soldier who fled into the country from South Korea and is now likely being held by the North Korean government, Rep. Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Sunday.
"The question is, Was he defecting?" the Texas Republican told ABC News' "This Week." "I think it was more running from his problems."
King, 23, went over the North Korean border with a tour group and was taken into custody last week after his release from a South Korean jail, where he was being held after a local altercation.
"That was the wrong place to go," McCaul told show host Martha Raddatz. "But we see this with Russia, China, Iran. When they take an American, particularly a soldier, captive, they exact a price for that, and that's what I worry about."
The congressman added that he doubts King is being treated well after making the "serious mistake" of crossing into North Korea.
The King matter comes as North Korea has been increasing its nuclear rhetoric, and as U.S. and South Korean military leaders were meeting to discuss their potential shared response to a North Korean attack, reported NBC News.
Further, an American nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine arrived in South Korea for the first time since the 1980s, adding to the tensions.
McCaul said that projecting strength at this time is important for deterrence, and having the submarine in the region is a "projection of strength that we need right now to deter aggression."
He added that North Korea is being aggressive, as shown by the rockets it fired into the Sea of Japan, as is China.
"When I came back from Taiwan, they encircled the island with 10 battleships and Armata, 70 fighter jets to threaten and intimidate us, and then I was sanctioned just to illustrate how aggressive their posture is now," McCaul said.
He added that it's "not by accident" that the Pacific Command is deploying nuclear submarines to the region for the first time in 40 years, as "attention has been provocative by Chairman Xi [Jinping] and North Korea, not by the United States, but rather by our adversaries."
Meanwhile, McCaul expressed doubt that the United States can work with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to persuade him against aggression.
"He puts his own people at risk to build these expensive nuclear weapons," he said, adding that North Korea has missiles with the capacity to reach the United States, but doesn't have the miniaturized nuclear warheads to equip them.
"They've been trying," he said. "We've got to stay ahead of the curve. China has a lot of influence, but China isn't our best friend right now."
McCaul also commented on the issue of climate change, as heat waves are hitting the United States and worldwide, and said he agrees the climate is changing and that could be a matter of national security.
"Africa, for instance, is becoming more and more arid," he said. "Famine, you know, breaks out of that. Terrorism breaks out of those conditions."
However, McCaul said he thinks China should be held to the same emissions standards as the United States, but since it is considered a "developing nation" under the U.N. Charter, "they can defer compliance of the Paris Agreements till 2060, while we have to be carbon neutral by 2030."
He said he's told Biden administration climate czar John Kerry that it is not fair to treat China as a developing nation when it is the second-largest economic superpower "and the No. 1 polluter on the planet" as a developing country.
"If we're going to do this at all, do it right and make them comply to our terms," McCaul said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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