President Donald Trump continued his war of words with North Korea, saying the United States was prepared to respond militarily.
He tweeted the following statement and a photo of military planes:
Trump refused to retreat from his verbal clash with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Speaking from his golf club in New Jersey, Trump said North Korea would be in trouble “like few nations have ever been.”
“They’ve been doing this to our country for a long time, many years. It’s about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries. So if anything, maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough. And we’re backed by 100 percent by our military. And we’re backed by many other leaders,” Trump said.
Other members of Trump’s administration have attempted to offer different views on the North Korea. U.S Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he did not believe the threat from North Korea has changed and defended the President’s statement.
“I think what the President was doing was sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un would understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language.”
Trump did not respond to questions of if he would consider a pre-emptive strike against North Korea. But he did take the opportunity to blame former administrations for the strained relationship with North Korea.
“They’ve been negotiating now for 25 years. Look at [Bill] Clinton. He folded on the negotiations. He was weak and ineffective. You look what happened with [George W.] Bush. You look what happened with [Barack] Obama. Obama, he didn’t even want to talk about it,” he said.