Trump Doubles Down on Threats Against North Korea as Nuclear Tensions Escalate<br />He added that all parties must assure the North Koreans that they would forgo “any military action against them if North Korea remains peaceful.”<br />For all the bellicose words, Mr. Trump said on Thursday that he was open to negotiations, as Mr. Tillerson has urged.<br />He’s not going to go around threatening Guam and he’s not going to threaten the United States<br />and he’s not going to threaten Japan, and he’s not going to threaten South Korea.<br />“The American people elected the president.”<br />But asked about his own equally tough but less colorful statement about North Korea,<br />issued on Wednesday, Mr. Mattis said, “The rhetoric is up to the president.<br />So if anything, maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough.”<br />Mr. Trump noted that North Korea, which has made significant progress toward developing long-range nuclear weapons, responded to his original<br />warning by threatening to launch a missile strike toward the Pacific island of Guam, an American territory and strategic base.<br />President Trump said Thursday that his previous “fire and fury” statement directed at North Korea was perhaps “not tough enough.”<br />BRIDGEWATER, N. J.<br />Rejecting critics at home and abroad who condemned his earlier warning as reckless saber-rattling, Mr. Trump said North Korea<br />and its volatile leader, Kim Jong-un, have pushed the United States and the rest of the world for too long.
