North Korea Doesn’t Respond In Kind After President Trump Offers To Meet Kim Jong Un

May 3, 2017 Topic: Security Region: Asia Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: Donald TrumpNorth KoreaMilitaryTechnologyKim Jong-un

North Korea Doesn’t Respond In Kind After President Trump Offers To Meet Kim Jong Un

Where do we go from here? 

President Donald Trump said Monday he “would be honored” to meet Kim Jong Un if the conditions were right, but the young North Korean dictator may not feel the same about Trump.

Trump called Kim Jong Un a “smart cookie” in a recent interview, acknowledging difficulties the young man overcame to become a brutal dictator. North Korea did not respond with any kind words about Trump or his administration.

Referring to the Trump administration as the “war maniacs,” the paper of the ruling party, the Rodong Sinmun, argued, “The reckless nuclear war provocation by the Trump administration will bring it nothing but the fall of the American empire.”

(This first appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation Site here.)  

The state-run newspaper stated, “The U.S. mainland is the final target of the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s] strategic rockets tipped with powerful nuclear warheads … The Pacific is no longer a peaceful ocean which guarantees the security of the U.S. It’s vast territory is exposed to our preemptive nuclear strike,” vowing to render the U.S. Navy carrier strike group operating in the area “useless.”

“Our strike will be merciless punishment that never allows the existence of the U.S.,” the Rodong Sinmun explained. “Our preemptive nuclear attacks will bring the provocateurs nothing but tragic consequences: South Korea will be submerged in a sea of fire, Japan will be reduced to ashes, and the U.S. will collapse.”

The newspaper reminded the Trump administration that it will “reduce the whole of the U.S. mainland to ruins with its absolute weaponry of justice” if it detects any slight sign of provocation.

The U.S. has moved strategic military assets, a nuclear-powered submarine, a carrier strike group, and nuclear-capable bombers, into the area, and the Air Force has another intercontinental ballistic missile test planned for Wednesday.

Trump said in response to questions of whether the U.S. would use military force against North Korea, “I don’t know. We’ll see.” For the time being, the focus appears to be on economic sanctions and international pressure, but the administration continues to claim that “all options are on the table.”

“The Trump administration would be well advised to learn how humbly the preceding administrations were put in the awkward position of lowering the fist of pressure they had raised before the DPRK,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) wrote, pulling from the state-run Minju Joson.

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