President Donald Trump says the US and China agree that a "freeze-for-freeze" agreement with North Korea is not acceptable.
Trump on Wednesday delivered a statement from the White House, following his nearly two-week tour of Asia.
He was referring to a proposal, backed by both China and Russia, whereby the North would freeze its nuclear programme in exchange for the US and South Korea stopping military drills.
Trump said that Chinese President Xi Jinping recognised that a nuclear North Korea was a "grave threat."
"We agreed that we would not accept a so-called freeze-for-freeze agreement like those that have consistently failed in the past."
China has not made a public disavowal of its past proposal.
Trump said the goal was to "denuclearise" North Korea but time was running out and the US has made clear that "all options remain on the table."
He also said he would work "as fast as possible" to eliminate sizable trade deficits with US trading partners, saying a key goal of the Asia trip was to insist on fair and reciprocal trade.
He believed it was "unacceptable" that the US trade deficit with other nations stands at about $US800 billion ($NZ1.1 trillion) a year.
"We are going to start whittling that down as fast as possible."
However, the president did not say how he planned to achieve that goal.
Trump visited Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines and called the trip "tremendously successful", saying it showed that America's "standing in the world has never been stronger."
