Trump tells North Korea: ‘My button is bigger’
President Donald Trump again raises the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea, boasting that he commands a “much bigger” and “more powerful” arsenal of devastating weapons.
President Donald Trump again raised the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea on Tuesday night, boasting that he commands a “much bigger” and “more powerful” arsenal of devastating weapons than the outlier government in Asia.
“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,’” Trump wrote on Twitter. “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!”
Trump’s combative response to a statement made in recent days by Kim raised the temperature in the brewing confrontation between the United States and North Korea even as American allies in South Korea were moving to open talks with Pyongyang. The contrast between Trump’s language and the peace overture by South Korea highlighted the growing rift between two longtime allies.
The president’s saberrattling tweet shifted the tenor of his response to the South Korean initiative just hours after a milder initial statement. Trump, who has scorned the prospects of negotiating with North Korea, earlier in the day said the possible talks between the two governments on the peninsula resulted from sanctions imposed by the United States and the international community. “Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not — we will see!” he wrote Tuesday morning.
Why Trump hardened his message later the same day was not immediately clear. But Trump has not hesitated to match North Korea’s incendiary language even while other American presidents resisted such back-and-forth taunting out of concern that it was unwise and unnecessarily rewarding the hermit nation.
Last summer, Trump vowed to rain down “fire and fury” on North Korea if it posed a threat to the United States. Last fall, he went before the United Nations General Assembly to warn that he would “totally destroy North Korea” if the United States were forced to defend itself or its allies.
Earlier Tuesday, Cho Myoung-gyon, the South’s point man on the North, proposed that the Korean governments hold their meeting next Tuesday in Panmunjom, a village straddling the border north of Seoul, the South Korean capital.
“We hope the two sides sit down for frank talks,” Cho, the unification minister, said.
If the North responds positively, it will set in motion the first official dialogue between the Koreas in two years. South Korean officials hope the talks will lead to a thaw after years of high tensions between the countries and threats of war over the North’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.
But analysts cautioned that a sudden move to improve ties between the Koreas could strain relations between Seoul and Washington.
The Trump administration sent a series of mixed messages that strongly suggested it was still trying to figure out the meaning of Kim’s overture and the South’s response.
Speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley appeared to dismiss the potential for bilateral negotiations between North and South Korea.
“We won’t take any of the talks seriously if they don’t do something to ban all nuclear weapons in North Korea,” she said. “We consider this to be a very reckless regime; we don’t think we need a Band-Aid; we don’t think we need to smile and take a picture.”
Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman, said the Trump administration was still assessing whether the United States supported direct talks between South Korea and North Korea that excluded the United States.
“Right now, if the two countries decide that they want to have talks, that would certainly be their choice,” she said.