FOREIGN POLICY/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump issued his starkest warning yet against North Korea, saying that ‘military solutions’ were ‘in place, locked and loaded’ should Pyongyang ‘act unwisely.’
From his working vacation at his golf resort in Bedminister, N.J., the president made the warning Friday [8-11-17] on Twitter just before 7:30 a.m. Eastern Time, escalating his rhetoric beyond his declaration the previous day that a previous threat to hit North Korea with ‘fire and fury’ should it threaten the U.S. wasn’t strong enough.
The president concluded the Friday tweet, ‘Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!’…
On Thursday, Mr. Trump said rejected criticisms that his words had been too inflammatory. He repeated his exhortation to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to stop issuing threats and vowed to invest billions of dollars more in missile defense…
The president’s comments escalated an exchange of threats between the U.S. and North Korea that have rattled markets and unnerved world leaders concerned about a nuclear-armed confrontation. U.S. stocks fell by nearly 1% on Thursday, for a third straight session.
Just an hour before Mr. Trump’s latest tweet, North Korea’s state media accused the U.S. president of ‘driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war,’ pointing to his threats of war against the North.”
-Louise Radnofsky, “Trump Warns North Korea ‘Military Solutions’ Are ‘In Place, Locked and Loaded’,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 11, 2017 08:29am