Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said North Korea’s denuclearization will only happen with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “permission” and “direction” because the two states are deeply intertwined.

Pompeo, the chief diplomat during U.S. President Donald Trump’s first term, spoke at a forum hosted by D&A LLC in Fairfax County, Virginia, on Monday and pointed out that there are currently “no carrots” to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear weapons.

Pompeo, who traveled to Pyongyang and met Kim in 2018 and 2019, pointed to China as the reason for the failed negotiations at the time.

He said that Kim does not have the freedom to decide the nuclear weapons issue alone and is reliant on Xi. 

Pompeo said, “This is not just a Chairman Kim problem. This is a China problem there. They are deeply intertwined."

Kim met with Xi around the time of the 2018 North Korea-U.S. summit in Singapore and was involved in coordinating strategies and discussing follow-up responses.

The U.S. official expressed regret for the failed negotiations with Pyongyang during Trump’s first term and said if he were to do things differently, he would've focused on deterring China from using North Korea as a “strategic tool.”

Pompeo also played down the possibility of such negotiations resuming under the second Trump administration.

Asked if he thought Trump could use North Korea negotiations as a means to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Pompeo said, “That’s not the avenue.”

He added that the Trump administration is unlikely to recognize North Korea as a nuclear-armed state officially.

Pompeo said the nation does not have much leverage in negotiations with North Korea and suggested putting as much pressure as possible on the regime, including preventing it from generating money to fuel its military capability.

Pompeo said he believes the Trump administration recognizes Xi's China as a "huge risk to the U.S. economy" but has yet to devise a response.

He also predicted that the Trump administration would open up market space for South Korean companies to secure aerospace and defense technologies, as well as ships and submarines needed to confront China, given the United States' underdeveloped industrial base.

Pompeo said he supported Trump's approval of South Korea's nuclear-powered submarine construction project and that he expected the related process to proceed smoothly in Congress.

He noted that North Korea has nuclear capabilities and stressed the need for South Korea to have sufficient defense capacity to fight against it.