President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to meet North Korean threats with “fire and fury” a day after Pyongyang said it was ready with “ultimate measures” in response to new U.N. sanctions pushed by Washington.
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” the president warned at a meeting on the opioid crisis held at Bedminster, N.J., where he is on an extended working vacation.
“They will be met with fire and the fury like the world has never seen,” he said, adding that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, “has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
The president’s remarks come on the same day as a report in The Washington Post that says U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that North Korea has perfected a miniaturized nuclear warhead capable of being fitted atop its ballistic missiles.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved sanctions over the weekend aimed at punishing North Korea for its recent tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The measures would block about $1 billion – or about one-third from North Korean exports.
As NPR’s Merrit Kennedy reported Monday, North Korea reacted angrily to the sanctions, saying it would “balance the U.S.’s felonious crime” with “something thousands of times worse.”
“… if the U.S. does not retract its attempt to crush us to death and behave prudently, we will be ready and not hesitate to take ultimate measures,” Pyongyang said in a statement published by the state-run KCNA news agency.
In July, North Korea conducted two successful launches of an ICBM, known as Hwasong-14, which is believed to be capable of reaching the west coast of the continental United States.
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