 (CNN) The top US military commander on the Korean peninsula said Friday that even as the United States and North Korea work on easing tensions and working toward denuclearization, diplomacy between the two nations was operating in an environment "void of trust." The commander of U.S. Forces-Korea, General Vincent Brooks, said that since North Korea’s last missile launch in November 2017, language and actions from Pyongyang have “signaled a change in direction, perhaps a change in calculus that we had been looking for.” 
 
 Brooks spoke Saturday to an audience at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado, via videolink. Since 2011, North Korea has fired more than 85 missiles and four nuclear weapons tests — which is more than what his father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, Kim Il Sung, launched over a period of 27 years. U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly expressed optimism about the ongoing talks with North Korea since Trump and Kim met in Singapore last month. "So building that trust while that pressure continues and while the efforts for diplomacy continue is the order of the day. In many ways the lack of trust is the enemy we now have to defeat," Brooks said. The United States displayed a "gangster-mindset" during the talks, the North Koreans said. Demonstrable action 'or we cannot be satisfied' 
 
 Gen. Brooks argued that the "maximum pressure" campaign the United States instituted last year, pushing punishing sanctions on the Kim regime, coupled with intensified military pressure, had contributed to compelling North Korea to engage with the international community. "There has to be demonstrable action in that direction, or we cannot be satisfied and we probably can't be friends and we probably won't be at peace," Brooks said, speaking about the North's path to give up its nuclear weapons. “We haven't seen a complete shutdown of production yet. We have not seen a removal of fuel rods,” he said. “These types of things tell us there are still steps that must be taken on the road to denuclearization.” 
 
 But Brooks expressed hope those steps are in the works.  A top U.S. military official called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “a man of his word” while backing up assertions by other key officials that talks with Pyongyang are making progress. Read more: A timeline of North Korea's defiant rocket launches in 2017 
 
 Brooks noted that it was important to not "overreact to things like that" while diplomats work to resolve tensions, and build trust between Washington and Pyongyang.
– President Trump declared North Korea was "no longer a nuclear threat" after his summit last month with Kim Jong Un, but the latest assessment from the Korean Peninsula's top US military commander offers a different take. The North's nuclear "production capability is still intact," Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, via a video link, told Aspen Security Forum attendees Saturday, adding that there's been no "complete shutdown" and no sign of fuel rods being removed. CNBC notes that what Brooks is saying jibes with a Washington Post report Sunday on a frustrated Trump and "stiff resistance from a North Korean team practiced in the art of delay and obfuscation." Some of that resistance has included canceled follow-up meetings, requests for more money, and a lack of communication, as well as a still-intact missile-engine testing site Trump vowed would be dismantled. "There has to be demonstrable action [toward denuclearization] or we cannot be satisfied and we probably can't be friends and we probably won't be at peace," Brooks said, per CNBC, though he stressed it was critical not to "overreact" and for the US and the North to build trust. He also expressed hope that steps toward denuclearization would happen. "[Kim] has really demonstrated he is a man of his word in a number of ways," Brooks said, per Voice of America. Others didn't share his optimism. "This is not the time to be putting the brakes on maximum pressure," said Rep. Mike McCaul, head of the House Homeland Security Committee. "This is a time [to] be putting the accelerator on." Brooks also relayed that the remains of "some" Americans killed in the Korean War would make their way home, per CNN. "The pain of those families is as acute today as it was then," he told the forum.