Did Trump sabotage Kim rocket tests? He’s not saying!

DONALD Trump has refused to confirm if the US has sabotaged North Korea’s missile tests.

The despotic regime suffered its second failure in a month on Saturday – adding to speculation that America has used cyber warfare against Kim Jong-un.

Asked why the North Korean missiles keep blowing up, Mr Trump told the CBS programme Face the Nation: ‘Well, I’d rather not discuss it.

‘But perhaps they’re just not very good missiles. But eventually, he’ll have good missiles.’

Pressed again on the issue, he would not deny whether the US had anything to do with it.

‘I just don’t want to discuss it,’ he said. ‘ And I think you know me very well, where you’ve asked me many times over the last couple of years about military [activity].

‘ I said, “We shouldn’t be announcing we’re going into Mosul”. I said, “We shouldn’t be announcing all our moves”.

‘It is a chess game. I just don’t want people to know what my thinking is. So eventually, he will have a better delivery system. And if that happens, we can’t allow it to happen.’

He was speaking hours after North Korea test-fired another ballistic missile which exploded shortly after take- off. It is believed it was a medium-range weapon called a KN-17.

The failed launch coincided with Mr Trump’s 100th day in office and prompted warnings from his administration of ‘catastrophic’ consequences if North Korea refused to halt the tests.

Of the missile, he said: ‘ This was a small missile. This was not a big missile. This was not a nuclear test, which he was expected to do three days ago. We’ll see what happens.

‘If he does a nuclear test, I will not be happy. And I can tell you also, I don’t believe that the president of China, who is a very respected man, will be happy either.’ Asked if that would mean military action, he said: ‘I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see.’

Not all experts agree that the US has the capability to take missiles out of the sky using cyber warfare.

Jeffrey Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, told the

‘Future of humanity at stake’

BBC: ‘ Every time you have a new missile there are going to be growing pains.

‘There is nothing unusual if it is new missiles.’

North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they are seen as part of Pyongyang’s push for a nuclear-tipped weapon that could hit the US mainland. Mr Trump has sent the USS Michigan nuclear-powered submarine and the USS Carl Vinson aircraft super carrier to the Korean Peninsula.

Yesterday Kim Jong-un threatened to destroy both vessels if they get any closer to North Korean waters.

The USS Michigan is docked at a naval base in Busan, South Korea, where it was recently joined by the super carrier.

North Korea’s propaganda website Uriminzokkiri warned: ‘Whether it’s a nuclear aircraft carrier or a nuclear submarine, they will be turned into a mass of scrap metal in front of our invincible military power centered on the self- defence nuclear deterrence.’

Pope Francis urged America and world leaders to use diplomacy to defuse the situation because the ‘future of humanity’ is at stake.