President Donald Trump was angered by North Korea’s projectiles test but tensions with Kim Jong Un have calmed.
North Korea fired off a few projectiles on Friday night — setting off a chaotic half day where it seemed the sputtering relationships between Washington, Seoul, and Pyongyang could come crashing down.
South Korea’s military initially said that its northern neighbor launched a short-range “missile” into the Sea of Japan from Wonsan in the country’s east between 9:06 am and 9:27 am local time on Saturday. Shortly after, though, Seoul revised its analysis to say Pyongyang set off “several projectiles,” thereby downgrading the kind of weapons used. It remains unclear how many projectiles North Korea fired or what kind were shot, although what is certain is they didn’t travel more than about 120 miles.
The specifics matter here. The United States and North Korea are engaged in months-long negotiations over how to dismantle Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal. President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that he’s fine with the protracted talks as long as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un doesn’t test any more missiles, especially ones that can reach the US carrying a nuclear warhead. Kim’s last test of that kind came in November 2017.
But should Kim conduct another long range missile test, it’s conceivable Trump and aides around him — particularly National Security Adviser John Bolton — could decide diplomacy has failed and revert back to the “fire and fury” threats of 2017.
People familiar with the scene inside the White House Friday night told me there was some fear about that possibility.
