North Korea’s test of a missile capable of reaching the U.S. has not only sparked a new wave of military exercises by the U.S. and its allies, but also tougher talk from President Trump himself at the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, this weekend.
During his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday at the end of the G-20 summit, Trump spoke bluntly about ending North Korean aggression. “It may take longer than I’d like, it may take longer than you’d like, but there will be success in the end one way or the other,” he told reporters.
Those comments follow the U.S. sending two bombers to conduct a military exercise over the Korean Peninsula, dropped “inert” bombs at South Korea’s Pilsung Range, as a show of strength to North Korea. Before that the U.S. conducted a joint military exercise with South Korean forces in which the two allies fired ballistic missiles off the Korean coast.
These exercises came in response to North Korea launching what the Pentagon believes is its first intercontinental ballistic missile test on Tuesday, which experts say has the capability of reaching parts of the U.S., including Alaska.
Trump took part in a trilateral summit Thursday with President Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea in response to that launch. After meeting again with Abe at the G-20 summit, Trump said on Saturday that they had discussed the “problem and menace of North Korea.” He added that Abe is “very, very focused on what’s going on with respect to North Korea.”
Trump also thanked Xi on Saturday for China’s work to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile testing capacity, a notable turn from his recent criticism of the country’s efforts to solve the issue.
“I appreciate the things that you have done relative to the very substantial problem that we all face in North Korea, a problem that something has to be done about,” Trump said.
North Korea’s missile test represented a radical new phase in the totalitarian regime’s quest for nuclear weapons. It has also unnerved key U.S. allies in the Pacific.
“As I look at the current situation, particularly the security environment in the Asia Pacific region, including North Korea, we believe that it has become increasingly severe,” Abe said during his meeting with President Trump.
It remains unclear whether the bomber exercises or escalated rhetoric could lead to North Korea dismantling its burgeoning nuclear program.
Former Air Force Gen. Chuck Wald told the Washington Examiner in a recent interview that it is time to up the ante. “I would try to shoot one of their test missiles down instead of just firing missiles off the South Korean coast out there,” he said.
