My nuke’s bigger than yours
Trump fires off bizarre warning to despot Kim ... on Twitter
DONALD Trump taunted Kim Jong-Un yesterday – boasting that his nuclear button was ‘much bigger and more powerful’ than North Korea’s. The US President’s comments followed Kim’s claim earlier this week that his nuclear launch button was ‘always on my table’.
The childlike exchange came as a key communication line between North and South Korea was set to be re-opened for the first time in more than two years.
On Twitter, Mr Trump said: ‘North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!’
The tweet came on a day in which Mr Trump also took credit for a lack of plane crashes, claimed he would announce awards for ‘corrupt media’ and threatened to pull aid from Palestinians for failing to show ‘appreciation or respect’.
The President does not have a literal ‘nuclear button’, but is accompanied at all times by an aide carrying communications equipment in a black leather bag, known as the ‘ nuclear football’, from which he can order nuclear weapons to be launched.
Kim’s new year address was the latest in a series of threats between Pyongyang and Washington since Mr Trump took office, as tensions escalated over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests. The rogue state previously threatened to strike the US territory of Guam in the Pacific, while tests have seen missiles fired from North Korea pass over Japan.
In Mr Trump’s taunts he has dubbed Kim ‘rocket man’ over the dictator’s aspirations to arm his country with nuclear weapons.
Kim warned this week that ‘ the whole territory of the US is within the range of our nuclear strike’.
It has not been proven that the despot has an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead – although intelligence suggests he is not far off.
The North Korean leader also said he was willing to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics, which will be hosted by South Korea next month.
Seoul responded on Tuesday by offering high-level talks with the North next week at a shared border village to discuss Olympic co-operation and how to improve ties between the nations.
US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley insisted that the key was not talks, but North Korea halting its nuclear programme. She said: ‘We won’t take any of the talks seriously if they don’t do something to ban all nuclear weapons in North Korea.
‘We consider this to be a very reckless regime. We don’t think we need a band-aid, and we don’t think we need to smile and take a picture.’
Any talks would be the first formal dialogue between the North and South since December 2015.
Pyongyang could view a closer relationship with Seoul as a way to lobby for relief from sanctions imposed by the UN. Theresa May refused to be drawn on Mr Trump’s comments yesterday.