Trump to North Korea: “Do not try us”

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA» President Donald Trump delivered a sharp warning to North Korea Wednesday, telling the rogue nation: “Do not underestimate us. And do not try us.”

In a speech delivered hours after he aborted a visit to the heavily fortified Korean demilitarized zone due to bad weather, Trump said he had a message for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer, they are putting your regime in grave danger,” Trump told an audience of South Korean lawmakers, calling on all nations to join forces “to isolate the brutal regime of North Korea.”

“The world cannot tolerate the menace of a rogue regime that threatens with nuclear devastation,” he said.

North Korea responded to Trump’s words by saying the U.S. should oust him from power.

State-run media in North Korea referred to Trump as a “lunatic old man.” It said the U.S. should force Trump out “to get rid of the abyss of doom.”

It says the U.S. should heed its advice “if it does not want a horrible nuclear disaster and tragic doom.”

Trump had hoped to underscore his message with an early morning visit to the DMZ, but his plans were thwarted by heavy fog that prevented his helicopter from landing at the heavily fortified border that has separated the North and South for the last 64 years.

The aborted visit came hours before Trump addressed the South Korean National Assembly as he closed out his twoday visit to the nation.

In the speech, Trump painted a bleak portrait of life in North Korea, describing citizens as bribing government officials to leave the country just so they can work as slaves. He contrasted the poverty and desperation to thriving South Korea — home to a long list of top-rated golfers, he noted.

“North Korea is not the paradise your grandfather envisioned. It is a hell that no person deserves,” Trump said.