North Korea is likely to conduct a missile test next week as President Donald Trump visits nearby China and South Korea and experts are worried Trump’s reaction is all that stands between peace and nuclear war.
McClatchy News reporter Anita Kumar said Trump “needs to watch what language he uses” during an MSNBC panel on Sunday and cautioned the president against using the usual explosive and threatening language with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should the rogue nation conduct a test while Trump is visiting the region.
Trump will be in South Korea on Nov. 7 and the United States has already dispatched three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to the area.
“What experts are telling me, though, is that there might be a missile test by North Korea while President Trump is traveling,” Kumar said. “That’s going to put him on the spot while he’s in China or South Korea.”
“So that would be huge,” Kumar said. “He’d have to decide then and there how to react.”
South Korean defense sources also believe North Korea could fire a missile during Trump’s travels, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Tensions between Washington have reached a fever pitch after months of threats from Trump and Kim. Just last week North Korea warned the U.S. to take its threats of nuclear testing and weapons development seriously.
“The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his words literally,” Ri Yong Pil, a senior diplomat in North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, told CNN.
The rogue nation has been threatening to test a hydrogen bomb above ground.
During a visit to the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said the U.S. is prepared to launch a “massive military response that’s both effective and overwhelming” should North Korea use any nuclear weapons.
The rest of the world is urging for a diplomatic solution to deescalating the North Korean conflict.
“No NATO allies and of course NATO do not want war,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
said in an interview with Jiji Press. “That would be a disaster.”
