Day 1,050: North Korea continues building missile components, taking digs at Trump
Three summits, zero results.
That is Donald Trump’s current record with North Korea. Despite all of Trump’s bluster about Kim Jong-un promising to denuclearize and the countries being on the precipice of a deal, that was all a predictable farce.
Kim got his photo-ops — including Trump saluting a North Korean general — and Trump got his headlines, but three years later, the countries are in almost the exact same place as they were when Trump took office.
For one, North Korea appears to working at sites Trump previously claimed were dismantled as they ramp up their threats.
A new satellite image obtained by CNN indicates North Korea may be preparing to resume testing engines used to power satellite launchers and intercontinental ballistic missiles at a site President Donald Trump previously claimed was dismantled after his Singapore summit with dictator Kim Jong Un this summer, according to experts who analyzed the photo.
The timing of renewed activity at Sohae also sends a clear message to Trump after a foreign ministry official said earlier this week that Pyongyang was preparing a “Christmas gift,” for Washington, but warned that the present the Trump administration will receive depends on events in the coming days.
This is more evidence of what has been reported for over a year. Trump has been played like a fiddle, bragging about Kim’s “beautiful letters,” and “falling in love,” even as North Korea continues to launch test missiles and build out their nuclear program.
And, for good measure, the childish barbs are back, even as Trump seems to think he and Kim have a good relationship.
Choe [Son Hui, North Korea’s First Vice-Foreign Minister] added: “If any language and expressions stoking the atmosphere of confrontation are used once again on purpose at a crucial moment as now, that must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard.”
Speaking of the North Korean leader at the NATO summit in London on Tuesday, Trump said: “He really likes sending rockets up, doesn’t he? That’s why I call him Rocket Man.” Trump added that he and Kim have “a good relationship.”
North Korea’s army chief of staff weighed in too.
In a statement published by the state-run North Korean Central News Agency, army chief of staff Pak Jong Chon said Kim was “displeased” with the “undesirable remarks” and warned that North Korea and the U.S. “are still technically at war and the state of truce can turn into an all-out armed conflict any moment.”
“One thing I would like to make clear is that the use of armed forces is not the privilege of the U.S. only,” Pak said.
Nothing has changed.
1,050 days in, 412 to go
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