Lawmakers given the lowdown

Lawmakers said they came away convinced that the Trump Administration recognized the urgency of the mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Photo / AP

President Donald Trump and his top national security advisers briefed congressional lawmakers yesterday on what a senior aide called the "very grave threat" posed by North Korea, but they offered few details about the Administration's strategy to pressure Pyongyang.

Administration officials emphasised in a pair of private briefings - one open to all senators at the White House and one for House members on Capitol Hill - that they were developing a range of new economic, diplomatic and military measures in the wake of a series of provocations from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un's regime.

Lawmakers said they came away convinced that the Trump Administration recognised the urgency of the mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula, where Pyongyang conducted a failed missile test last week in the face of international condemnation.

But several members of Congress said the Administration remained vague and unclear about its efforts to confront Pyongyang beyond tougher talk from Trump.

"There was a definite degree of resolve that we've got a bad situation on our hands and they're ratcheting up the importance of this," said one Republican senator, who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss a private meeting.

"One of the things that I surmised from it was that as much as anything else, perhaps they wanted to prepare everybody for the fact that this could escalate quickly. That's my own read on it."

Congressman Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, emphasised, however, that there was no talk from the Administration about a preemptive strike on North Korea.

A senior Administration official said that a timeline had been developed to press North Korea, but he emphasised the approach would be "mainly events-driven," predicated on the Kim regime's actions. "Nothing is risk-free. This situation is not risk-free," the official said.