US braces for North Korean ‘event’
Regime suspected of planning to test nuclear weapon
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump hit the golf course Friday as he and his aides braced for what North Korea calls a “big event,” possibly some kind of nuclear test.
Administration officials said they are hopeful that China can dissuade its communist neighbor from conducting a nuclear explosion or a missile test.
“I think China has really been working very hard,” Trump told reporters Thursday, later adding that “we’ll see how it goes.” He also said: “North Korea is a problem; the problem will be taken care of.”
The president, who is spending Easter weekend at his Mara-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, had no public events on his schedule Friday.
Meanwhile, the North Koreans accused Trump of fomenting tensions in the region with tactics that range from “aggressive” tweets to this week’s movement of a U.S. carrier strike group into the region.
“We will go to war if they choose,” North Korea Vice Foreign Minister Han Song Ryol said.
Kim Jong Un’s government has pledged “a big and important event” for Saturday, the 105th birthday of the country’s founder, Kim Il-sung, the current president’s grandfather. In recent years, North Korea has marked the date with missile tests.
U.S. officials said they suspect North Korea is planning another underground nuclear test.
North Korea was the prime topic of a recent phone call and summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, whose country is the most powerful supporter of North Korea.
American and Chinese officials have discussed the possibility of cutting off oil imports in response to more nuclear provocations from North Korea.
The Global Times, a periodical in China, editorialized this week that, if necessary, it would approve of “severe restrictive measures that have never been seen before, such as restricting oil imports to the North.”
Trump and aides have said the United States will address North Korea on its own if China doesn’t.