TRUMP 'FIRES' AGAIN
Mauls madman Kim with tougher scorch talk
President Trump ramped up his rhetoric against North Korea on Thursday, saying his warning that the country would face “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it kept threatening the US “wasn’t tough enough.”
“They’ve been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years, and it’s about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries. So if anything, maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough,” the president said at his Bedminster, NJ, golf club.
Asked what could be tougher than “fire and fury,” he said, “You’ll see. You’ll see.”
He warned of devastating consequences if the rogue nation and its dictator, Kim Jong-un, threatens the US or its allies.
“They should be very nervous. Because things will happen to them like they never thought possible, OK?” the president said.
The North, he said, had been threatening the US for decades and past efforts to contain the country and curb its nuclearweapons program had failed.
“North Korea better get their act together, or they’re going to be in trouble like few nations ever have been in trouble in this world,” he said.
Asked whether he would consider a pre-emptive strike, Trump said, “We’ll see what happens.”
During a news conference later, he said Kim is “not getting away with it. It’s a whole new ballgame. He’s not going to be saying those things, and he’s certainly not going to be doing those things.” In related developments:
Tens of thousands rallied in Pyongyang to support Kim, with many dressed in white button-down shirts with red ties. They held banners sup-
porting the military and raised their right fists in defiance. Japan’s new defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, said his country could attempt to shoot down any missiles passing overhead, but some experts questioned whether the nation had that capability. The North repeated its threat to launch four Hwasong-12 medium-range ballistic missiles into the ocean near Guam, a US territory, sometime in mid-August.
“The Hwasong-12 rockets to be launched by the KPA [Korean People’s Army] will cross the sky above Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi Prefectures of Japan,” the North Korean government news agency said.
“They will fly [2,085.8 miles] for 1,065 seconds and hit the waters [18 to 25 miles] away from Guam.”
China’s state-run Global Times newspaper said Friday that if North Korea launches an attack that threatens the US, China should stay neutral. But, it said, if the US launched first, China would try to stop them.
Trump huddled with Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chief of Staff John Kelly for a security briefing at his golf club in Bedminster.
The US has a massive military presence in the Pacific. The 7th Fleet has six Aegis ballistic missile-defense ships in the region capable of targeting North Korean missiles, and Japan has another four.
In addition to a naval base, Guam has a THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, anti-missile system, similar to one recently installed in South Korea.
Any attack against Guam would be considered an existential threat to Japan, Onodera, the defence minister, said at a session of Japan’s parliament.
Trump’s comments came a day after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson assured the US there was no imminent threat posed by the North and that Americans should sleep easy.
Trump insisted Thursday that he and Tillerson were on the same page despite their differing tones — but experts said the message overall was confusing.
“We’ve had a lot of messages," said former UN Ambassador Bill Richardson, who has traveled to North Korea several times.
“We’ve had a diplomatic message from the secretary of state, [but] the national security adviser, the UN ambassador, they seem to have different messages, more aggressive. Pre-emptive military strikes. We need to cool down and be rational because this is a very grave situation.”