The former deputy director of the CIA, Michael Morell, has been highly critical of President Trump's behaviour towards North Korea.
Mr Trump has threatened North Korea with "fire and fury", and refused to rule out a pre-emptive strike on the rogue state.
"Our allies are safe and I will tell you this, North Korea better get their act together or they are going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world," Mr Trump told reporters at his Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey on Thursday (local time).
However speaking CBS News' Anthony Mason, Mr Morell said the US is causing a great deal of confusion and inflaming the situation in the Asia region.
"I think the president's statements of the last two days are reckless and I think they're reckless for two reasons. One is that Kim Jong-Un has been shown to be provokable. And so this playground game of dare, double dare is dangerous," he said.
"The second is that statement such as this box the president in from a policy perspective. At a time when he should be trying to maximize policy options, he's narrowing them."
Mr Morell warned that Mr Trump needed to provide clarity in his foreign policy, and the US needed to speak with one voice.
"Right now we have three voices. We have the president's very tough rhetoric that's being read as possible US preemptive action. You got Secretary Tillerson's statements which walk back significantly," he said.
"And then you got Secretary of Defense Mattis' statements that are tough but they talk about a US response to a first step by North Korea. One of the great frustrations here in East Asia is they don't know what US policy is and they're asking, what is US strategy?"
Newshub.
