WAR OF WORDS
U.S., S. Korea plan to move ahead with large-scale exercises
Trump tells North Korea to “get their act together.”
SEOUL, South Korea — Not backing down, President Donald Trump warned Kim Jong Un’s government on Thursday to “get their act together” or face extraordinary trouble, and suggested he had been too mild when he vowed to unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea if it continued to threaten the U.S.
“Maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough,” Trump said, in the latest U.S. salvo in an escalating exchange of threats between the nuclear-armed nations.
A day after North Korea laid out plans to strike near Guam with unsettling specificity, there was no observable march toward combat, despite the angry rhetoric from both sides. Still, the stage is set for new confrontation soon.
U.S. and South Korean military officials plan to move ahead with largescale exercises later this month that North Korea, now finalizing plans to launch a salvo of missiles toward Guam, claims are a rehearsal for war.
The exercises are an annual event, but come as Pyongyang says it is readying a plan to fire off four “Hwasong-12” missiles toward the U.S. island territory and major military hub. The plan would be sent to leader Kim Jong Un for approval just before or as the U.S.-South Korea exercises begin.
Called Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, the exercises are expected to run from Aug. 21-31 and involve tens of thousands of American and South Korean troops on the ground and in the sea and air. Washington and Seoul say the exercises are defensive in nature and crucial to maintaining a deterrent against North Korean aggression.
The exercises were scheduled well before tensions began to rise over Trump’s increasingly fiery rhetoric and North Korea’s announcement of the missile plan, which would be its most provocative launch yet.
Trump declined to say whether the U.S. is considering a pre-emptive military strike as he spoke to reporters Thursday before a briefing with his top national security advisers at his New Jersey golf resort.
The president insisted the North had been “getting away with a tragedy that can’t be allowed.”
“North Korea better get their act together, or they are going to be in trouble like few nations have ever been in trouble,” Trump said, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence. Accusing his predecessors of insufficient action, Trump said it was time somebody stood up to the pariah nation.
Though tensions have been building for months amid new missile tests by the North, the pace has intensified since the U.N. Security Council on Saturday passed sweeping new sanctions Trump had requested. The sanctions prompted the new heated volley of rhetoric.