US warns of ‘massive response’
> Trump rebukes Seoul, says it is trying to appease Pyongyang
WASHINGTON: The US warned it could launch a “massive military response” to any threats from North Korea following Pyongyang’s provocative detonation of what it claimed was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb.
Defence secretary Jim Mattis spoke out on Sunday after North Korea carried out an unexpectedly strong nuclear test, more powerful than the bomb that levelled Hiroshima in 1945.
President Donald Trump called an emergency meeting of national security advisers and had his second phone call of the weekend with Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe, but did not talk to South Korea’s Moon Jae-In – instead accusing Seoul of “appeasement”.
He threatened drastic economic sanctions, including “stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea”.
Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday his department was preparing measures to “cut off North Korea economically” and ensure anyone trading with it could not do business with the US.
That would impact Beijing, which is responsible for 90% of the North’s commerce, but would also have dramatic consequences for the US as China is the world’s second-largest economy.
Mattis told reporters: “Any threat to the US or its territories, including Guam, or our allies will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.
“We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea,” he added, but warned: “We have many options to do so.”
The White House said the US was committed to “defending our homeland, territories, and allies using the full range of diplomatic, conventional, and nuclear capabilities at our disposal.”
Pyongyang residents celebrated as a jubilant television newsreader hailed the “unprecedentedly large” blast which she said had moved the country closer to “the final goal of completing the state nuclear force”.
Moon, who advocates engagement as well as penalties to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table, called for new United Nations sanctions to “completely isolate North Korea”.
Yesterday, Seoul carried out a live-fire exercise in the Sea of Japan using a volley of missiles to simulate an attack on the North’s nuclear site.
Jang Kyoung-soo, acting deputy minister of national defence policy, said South Korea will cooperate with the United States and seek to deploy “strategic assets like aircraft carriers and strategic bombers”.
The South’s defence ministry also said it would deploy the four remaining launchers of the THAAD missile defence system after the completion of an environmental assessment by the government.
But Trump criticised the US treaty ally on Twitter, saying: “South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!” – Agencies