Is the U. S. president ready to put some muscle behind his tough talk?
Donald Trump famously boasted that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’ t lose any voters.” I wonder if that offer is good for a North Korean long-range missile hitting the same spot?
I ask, because North Korea’s state media is now hinting that it will test a long-range missile capable of hitting New York — and trolling Donald Trump in the process.
You may recall that back in January, some media outlets got the idea that North Korea might test an intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) , prompting Trump to unleash a two-part Twitter tirade:
North Korea’s reaction to the tweets was fairly muted at the time, though state media eventually released a statement suggesting it would test its missiles when Kim Jong Un pleased. A period of silence followed. In hindsight, it’s clear North Korea wasn’ t backing down. North Korea just had a busy missile test plan for the 2017, and it wasn’ t about to alter it just because some buffoon was hate-tapping ill-tempered tweets.
Over the course of 2017, North Korea has been working its way through flight tests for all the new missiles shown off in the April 15 military parade to commemorate Kim Il Sung’s birthday. So far, North Korea has tested a new land-based variant of its solid-fueled medium-range ballistic missile, a new intermediate-range ballistic missile, a short-range Scud modified for greatly improved accuracy, and most recently an anti-ship cruise missile. According to the database of tests compiled by my colleagues, North Korea has been popping off a missile launch about once a week.
At this brisk pace, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has checked off all the new missiles displayed in the parade except for two: the apparent ICBMs displayed at the end.
As if on cue, North Korea has now turned back to Donald Trump’s tweet.
