The United States on Wednesday warned of unilateral action if the United Nations did not take any action against the perpetrators of the horrific chemical attack in Syria's Idlib on Tuesday.
Deemed as one of the worst chemical attacks in Syria's 6 years of civil war, the attack in the rebel-held Khan Sheikhun killed at least 70 civilians, which included 20 children and 13 women. Many others in the attack were left with respiratory problems and faced symptoms like vomiting, fainting and foaming at the mouth, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Trump had assumed office promising that he would improve ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad's ally, and would focus entirely on defeating the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria.
However, Trump said that his view on the conflict had been changed -- as footage emerged of Syrian children choking to death -- by the attack which "cannot be tolerated."
"It crossed a lot of lines for me," Trump told reporters during a joint White House news conference with Jordan's King Abdullah, alluding to Obama's failure to enforce his own 2013 "red line," AFP reported.
"When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, little babies... that crosses many, many lines, beyond a red line, many, many lines," Trump warned. "I will tell you, it's already happened, that my attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed very much... You're now talking about a whole different level."
Trump, however, did not go into details about what the US response to the tragedy in Syria would be. The Republican had previously opposed deeper US military involvement in Syria's civil war.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, on Wednesday said that the US will take unilateral actions if the United Nations fails to act collectively.
"When the United Nations consistently fails in its duty to act collectively, there are times in the life of states that we are compelled to take our own action," Haley said.
The US secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged Russia to consider its support to Assad's regime in war-torn Syria.
"There is no doubt in our mind that the Syrian regime under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad is responsible for this horrific attack," Tillerson told reporters. "And we think it is time for the Russians to really think carefully about their continuing support for the Assad regime."
The United States, France and Britain have presented a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council demanding a full investigation into the incident. However, Russia and Iran, Syria's main diplomatic and military partner, have said that the draft text is "categorically unacceptable."
