Trump: U.S. ‘locked and loaded’

President says North Korea won’t get away with attacking Guam or any American territory

Bedminster, N.J. — President Donald Trump on Friday made fresh threats of force against North Korea, writing on Twitter that the U.S. military is “locked and loaded” and later telling reporters that the isolated country would “truly regret it” if it attacks Guam or any other American territory.

“This man will not get away with what he’s doing, believe me,” Trump said of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose nation, in open defiance of the United Nations, has been developing nuclear weapons capable of reaching the United States. “I hope that they are going to fully understand the gravity of what I said, and what I said is what I mean.”

Trump’s comments at his private golf club here, where he is on a working vacation, came several hours after he tweeted Friday morning that “military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.”

“Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!” Trump added.

The president told reporters here that “those words are very, very easy to understand,” and he put the North Korean leader on notice about his intentions if threats to Guam continue.

“If he utters one threat, in the form of an overt threat — which, by the way, he has been uttering for years, and his family has been uttering for years — or if he does anything with respect to Guam or anyplace else that’s an American territory or an American ally, he will truly regret it, and he will regret it fast. OK?” Trump said.

As Trump continued his bellicose rhetoric — a tactic criticized by some U.S. leaders and allies — North Korea kept up its verbal salvos, as well. A commentary in a state-run newspaper said that the “U.S. military warmongers are running amok” and warned that “the U.S. and its vassal forces will dearly pay for the harshest sanctions and pressure and reckless military provocations.”

In the Pacific region and around the world, concern mounted over the rhetoric from both sides. German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned that “verbal escalation” may be the wrong response to the crisis.

Trump’s latest verbal volleys came a day after he warned North Korea that “things will happen to them like they never thought possible” should the country attack the United States or its allies.

Trump also told reporters that his threat of “fire and fury” on Tuesday may not have been “tough enough,” even as he sought to reassure an anxious world that he has the situation under control.

The ratcheted-up talk by Trump comes as North Korea has stepped up its threats against the United States, including warning of a potential missile launch landing near the U.S. territory of Guam.

On Friday morning, Trump also retweeted images from the U.S. Pacific Command that showed two Air Force B-1B bombers that it said had joined counterparts from the South Korean and Japanese air forces in the region.

The command’s tweet included the hashtag #FightTonight, more of a signal of its readiness to fight if needed than a sign it is spoiling for a battle within days. The Air Force has kept bombers on Guam for years, and the Pentagon and U.S. Forces Korea have long used the “fight tonight” motto in South Korea to reflect the seriousness of their mission.

Public safety officials in Guam, meanwhile, have distributed a two-page pamphlet advising island residents how to prepare and react should North Korea follow through on threats to launch a nuclear strike against the U.S. territory.

The document includes several ominous warnings, the first being: “Do not look at the flash or fireball — It can blind you.”

Amid the tensions, Trump scheduled a meeting Friday in Bedminster with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley.

The State Department said Tillerson would “de-brief” the president on his recent trip to Asia.

Although neither Tillerson nor Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have spoken directly about Trump’s threats, both have issued statements this week indicating that diplomacy is and should remain the centerpiece of U.S. policy toward North Korea.

A White House aide said Trump plans to return to Washington for part of the day on Monday but would not share the reason for his trip amid time scheduled in New Jersey and New York.

Asked to respond to those who say his threats could backfire, Trump told reporters, “My critics are only saying that because it’s me.”

“If somebody else uttered the exact same words that I uttered, they’d say: ‘What a great statement, what a wonderful statement,’” Trump said. “I will tell you, we have tens of millions of people in this country that are so happy with what I’m saying, because they’re saying, ‘Finally, we have a president that’s sticking up for our nation and, frankly, sticking up for our friends and our allies.’”

Trump’s rhetoric has become considerably more bellicose in recent days.

Just this past weekend, the administration was congratulating itself for orchestrating a unanimous U.N. Security Council vote to sharply increase sanctions against Pyongyang, describing steady diplomatic and economic pressure as the keystone of its strategy.

On Thursday, however, Trump said that the administration is examining its entire military posture in Asia and that “we are preparing for many different alternative events.”

After Trump’s tweet Friday morning, Merkel told reporters in Berlin that “I don’t see a military solution to this conflict,” according to the media outlet Deutsche Welle.

“I see the need for enduring work at the U.N. Security Council ... as well as tight cooperation between the countries involved, especially the U.S. and China,” she said.

Germany, Merkel said, “will very intensively take part in the options for resolution that are not military, but I consider a verbal escalation to be the wrong response.” Under the NATO charter, all 29 members have pledged that an attack against any one of them will be considered an attack against all.

Trump said Friday afternoon that Merkel was not speaking for the United States.

“Well, I think maybe she’s speaking for Germany,” he said. “Let her speak for Germany. She’s a friend of mine, she’s a very good person, a very good woman . ... Perhaps she is referring to Germany. She is certainly not referring to the United States. That I can tell you.”

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the risks of direct conflict “are very high, especially given this rhetoric, [when] direct threats of using force are being made.”

Russia, he said, was “very worried” by “talk of the need to carry out a pre-emptive strike at North Korea, Pyongyang’s talk of the need to strike at Guam island ... This has been continual,” according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

“We don’t accept a nuclear-powered North Korea,” Lavrov said in response to questions at a youth forum, but he added that the United States should take the first step away from conflict.

“I believe when it actually comes to a fight, the one that is stronger and smarter should take the first step away from the dangerous line,” Lavrov said.

He repeated a call by Russia and China for a “double freeze” in which Kim “freezes any nuclear tests, any ballistic-missile launches, while the U.S. and South Korea freeze largescale military exercises, which are constantly used by North Korea as an excuse to conduct tests.”

The United States has rejected such a freeze, and an annual U.S.-South Korea military exercise is scheduled to begin later this month.

In the Pacific region, U.S. allies Japan, South Korea and Australia have called for caution but said they would support the United States in the event of an attack by North Korea.

An editorial in China’s staterun Global Times said that Beijing should “prevent” the United States and South Korea from carrying out an attack designed to overthrow the North Korean government but that China should “stay neutral” in the event of a North Korean attack and U.S. retaliation.

Meanwhile, in a commentary published Friday in North Korea, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party said in typically dramatic language that “the U.S. has been seized with anxiety and terror” since North Korea conducted its second intercontinental ballistic-missile test last month.

The United States is now “fearful of when weapons of Korea will shower shells on its military bases for aggression and mainland,” the paper said, accusing Trump by name of creating a “horrible atmosphere” by saying any war would be fought on the Korean Peninsula.

“That is why U.S. military warmongers are running amok, vociferating about introduction of strategic assets into the Korean peninsula and ‘pre-emptive attack,’” the commentary said.

“It is tragedy that the reckless and hysteric behaviors may reduce the U.S. mainland to ashes any moment,” it continued, saying that North Korea would emerge victorious from the standoff, which has lasted since the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953.

“The U.S. and its vassal forces will dearly pay for the harshest sanctions and pressure and reckless military provocations against the DPRK,” the commentary concluded, using the official abbreviation for North Korea.

Amid calls at home and abroad for dialogue rather than threats, the Trump administration has kept open a back channel of talks with Pyongyang. But a senior official said, “I wouldn’t want to steer you toward the idea that there’s a lot going on.”

“I would only say that if the North Koreans were ready to talk on terms that we would consider acceptable, it wouldn’t be hard for them to find us,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door policymaking.

Trump told reporters that he didn’t want to talk about “back channels.”

“We want to talk about a country that has misbehaved for many, many years — decades, actually — through numerous administrations, and they didn’t want to take on the issue, and I had no choice but to take it on, and I’m taking it on,” he said. “And we’ll either be very, very successful quickly or we’re going to be very, very successful in a different way quickly.”

“If he utters one threat, in the form of an overt threat — which, by the way, he has been uttering for years, and his family has been uttering for years — or if he does anything with respect to Guam or anyplace else that’s an American territory or an American ally, he will truly regret it, and he will regret it fast. OK?” PRESIDENT TRUMP ON N. KOREAN LEADER KIM JONG UN