Trump team gives varying messages on threats
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his top national security aides delivered contrasting messages of alarm and reassurance over North Korea’s expanding nuclear capabilities, with the commander in chief touting America’s atomic supremacy a day after threatening “fire and fury” for the communist country.
North Korea, meanwhile, responded with more vitriol.
As international alarm escalated over the still-remote possibility of nuclear confrontation, Mr. Trump on Wednesday dug in on his threats of military action and
posted video of his ultimatum to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In a rare flexing of America’s own nuclear might, Mr. Trump said his first order as president was to “renovate and modernize” an arsenal that is “now far stronger and more powerful than ever before.”
The suggestion that Mr. Trump has done anything to enhance U.S. nuclear firepower was disputed by experts, who noted no progress under Mr. Trump’s presidency. Still, Mr. Trump tweeted: “Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerfulnation in the world!”
Hours later, North Korea officially dismissed Mr. Trump’s threats declaring the American leader “bereft of reason” and warning ominously, “Only absolute force canwork on him.”
The Korean People’s Armythreatened to “turn the U.S. mainland into the theater of a nuclear war,” sending a strong signal that Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions remain unchecked. And it said any U.S. strike on North Korea missile and nuclear targets would be “mercilessly repelled.”
In a statement carried by state media, Gen. Kim Rak Gyom, who heads North Korea’s rocket command, also said his country was “about to take” military action near the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, which lies about 2,100 miles from the Korean Peninsula. He said the North would finalize a plan by mid-August to fire four mid-range missiles hitting waters 19 to 25 miles awayfrom the island.
The plan will then go to the commander in chief of North Korea’s nuclear force and “wait for his order,” Gen. Kim was quoted as saying. He called it a “historic envelopingfire at Guam.”
Mr. Trump’s Wednesday tweets did little to soothe concerns that he was helping push the standoff with North Korea into uncharted and even more dangerous territory. While the prospect of military action by either side appears slim, given the level of devastation that would ensue, Mr. Trump’s talk Tuesday of “fire and fury like the world has never seen” compounded fears of an accident or misunderstanding leading the nuclear-armed nations into conflict.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to calm the sense of crisis.
Speaking earlier Wednesday on his way home from Asia, he credited Mr. Trump with sending a strong message on the “unquestionable” U.S. ability to defend itself, so as to prevent “any miscalculation.” Mr. Tillerson insisted the U.S. isn’t signaling a move toward military action, while it pursues a policy of sanctions and isolation of NorthKorea.
“Americans should sleep well at night,” he said.
No sooner had Mr. Tillerson ratcheted down the rhetoric than Defense Secretary Jim Mattis ratcheted it back up. Mr. Mattis said North Korea should stand down its nuclear weapons program and “cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.”
As seldom as it is for a president to speak of using nuclear missiles, the reference to the “destruction” of a foreign people is equally rare.