U.S. warns North Korea
Trump administration meets after test, threatens military response
The Trump administration warned Sunday of a “massive military response” against North Korea and President Trump threatened to halt trade with China after Pyongyang conducted an alarmingly powerful nuclear test.
The rhetoric heated up after North Korea claimed it tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb that could be transported on a ballistic missile. Trump declined to dismiss the possibility of a U.S. attack on North Korea, responding to a reporter’s question by saying only, “We’ll see.”
The president met with his national security team on the expanding crisis. Afterward, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned that any threat to the U.S. or its allies would be met with a “massive military response.”
“We have many military options, and the president wanted to be briefed on each one of them,” Mattis said outside the White House. “We are not looking to the total annihilation” of North Korea.
Reports of the nuclear test, North Korea’s sixth and the first since last September, drew swift condemnation from other nations, including South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, Britain, Italy and the leaders of NATO and the European Union.
South Korea estimated the blast had a strength of 100 kilotons — far more powerful than previous tests or the bombs the U.S. dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. There was no immediate confirmation outside North Korea that the test involved a hydrogen bomb, or that the bomb was small enough to be loaded onto a missile.
Atomic weapons tested by North Korea in the past employed nuclear fission to split atoms. Hydrogen bombs fuse atoms together — nuclear fusion — to release far greater amounts of energy.
The test appeared to mark a significant step forward in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s quest for a viable nuclear missile capable of striking anywhere in the United States.
U.S. Geological Survey data showed that a magnitude 6.3 seismic event was detected Sunday in North Hamgyeong Province. Later, the the geological survey said a magnitude 4.1 event was recorded eight minutes after the initial quake, “possibly a structural collapse” caused by the larger seismic event.
Analysts said Sunday’s test indicated that North Korea is getting close to posing a credible nuclear threat to the U.S.
“This looks like a major improvement in yield and the two-stage nature of the test supports the idea it was a test of a thermonuclear device,” said Chad O’Carroll, CEO and founder of Seoul-based Korea Risk Group, a risk advisory firm specializing in North Korea.
“If, as North Korea says, the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile can now be equipped with a thermonuclear device like the one tested today, it means the North is very close to being able to deploy credible battle-ready nuclear weapons that can target the U.S,” O’Carroll added.
On North Korean television, a news reader called the test a “complete success.”
“North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States. ... ”
Trump tweeted that North Korea is a “great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.”
Then, later: “The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.”
Trump has consistently pressed China, North Korea’s primary trading partner by far, to use its considerable economic influence over Pyongyang to halt the North’s nuclear buildup. China has its own concerns on the Korean Peninsula, and has no interest in any solution that could lead to a unified, democratic Korea.
China’s Foreign Ministry, however, did issue a strong statement chastising Pyongyang.
“Today, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, despite universal opposition from the international community, conducted another nuclear test,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The Chinese government expresses firm opposition to and strong condemnation of the test.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the test with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Kremlin said. Abe called for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to discuss stricter sanctions against the Kim regime.