« Our military which is by far the most powerful in the world, is ready if necessary, and South Korea and Japan are ready should foolish or reckless acts be taken by North Korea. »
When the carrot fails, the stick comes out.
Just a few hours after Donald Trump unexpectedly cancelled the planned June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un, which he called « a tremendous setback for North Korea and indeed a setback for the world », the president said the U. S. military is ready if necessary in the event of a conflict on the Korean peninsula.
Speaking at the White House not long after releasing the « Dear John » letter to Kim, Trump said he had conferred with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis (who continues to warn anyone who is listening of imminent war), the leaders of South Korea and Japan, and said that the U. S. military is » ready if necessary » and the two Asian allies » are not only ready should foolish or reckless acts be taken by North Korea, but they are willing to shoulder much of the cost of any financial burden » of a conflict.
President Trump says he’s spoken to Sec. Mattis and that the U. S. military is « ready if necessary » after cancelling North Korea summit: « We are more ready than we have ever been before. » https://t.co/mT5oen5Kri pic.twitter.com/XpD5yZ3Ues
Trump’s not so veiled threat came just hours after North Korea’s vice minister of foreign affairs, Choe Son Hui said that if the June 12 talks were called off, the U. S. could instead face off with North Korea in a « nuclear-to-nuclear showdown » threatening to « make the U. S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined up to now » and called VP Mike Pence a « political dummy » for threatening to use the « Libya Model » (which ended not so well for Muammar Gadaffi) if North Korea does not denuclearize.
Trump also left the door slightly open for a last minute reconciliation, noting that the June 12 summit in Singapore could get back on track, or that he and Kim could meet in the future. However, as Bloomberg reports, the probability of that is virtually nil:
A senior administration official later downplayed the idea that the meeting could be put back on track for June 12. The North Koreans, the official said, have recently stopped cooperating on preparations for the summit. For example, U. S. officials traveled to Singapore last week expecting to meet with North Korean counterparts, but the North Koreans never showed up.
“They stood us up,” the official said at a briefing for reporters conducted on condition of anonymity.
