Trump threatens N Korea with ‘fire and fury like you’ve never seen before...’
DONALD Trump has promised North Korea ‘fire and fury’ if it threatens the United States.
The president issued a clear warning to the dictatorship during a briefing at his golf club in New Jersey last night following a report that North Korea had manufactured a warhead capable of fitting inside its missiles.
Responding to a Press question, he said: ‘North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States.
‘They will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.’
Mr Trump did not offer any follow-up to his remarks, which will add to the escalating tension concerning nuclear arms.
It is not clear if North Korea has tested the warhead but the report sparked alarm around the world.
US intelligence analysts have said that by next year Pyongyang is expected to have a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile which could hit cities on the west coast of America.
North Korea’s leader Kim JongUn is also thought to have up to 60 nuclear weapons in his arsenal, the US estimates.
The Washington Post reported that US intelligence officials revealed their new conclusions in a confidential assessment dated July 28. The document said the rogue state has developed a miniature warhead as deadly as a larger one.
It said: ‘The intelligence community assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles’.
An assessment this week by the Japanese ministry of defence also said it appeared the miniaturisa- tion process was successful. The report emerged hours after Pyongyang threatened ‘physical action’ in response to new sanctions from the UN which won the support of China and Russia. The tough measures include a ban on exports that supply up to a third of North Korea’s annual £2.5billion earnings.
Yesterday Mr Trump tweeted: ‘After many years of failure, countries are coming together to finally address the dangers posed by North Korea. We must be tough & decisive!’
North Korea’s missile technology, which it is banned from developing by the UN Security Council, has advanced rapidly.
The impoverished state has staged five nuclear tests and last month it shocked the world by firing its first ICBM, the Hwasong-14 which has a 5,000-mile range, enough to reach Alaska.
But analysts said that without a miniature warhead and advances in technology it would not be accurate enough.
Referring to the Second World War nuclear bomb programme Robert Litwak, of the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars said: ‘ What initially looked like a slow-motion Cuban missile crisis is now looking more like the Manhattan Project, just barreling along.
‘ There’s a sense of urgency behind the program that is new to the Kim Jong-Un era.’
The North has learned through decades of isolation how to circumvent commercial and financial restrictions and China and Russia have often proven half-hearted when it comes to policing them.
‘On paper, this is a pretty strict containment of North Korea economically,’ said Scott Snyder, an expert on the Koreas at the Council on Foreign Relations. ‘But North Korea has been able to evade sanctions in the past and it’s not clear to me things are going to be much different this time.’