Trump, Moon agree to show muscle after North Korea N-test

Bloomberg

US President Donald Trump agreed to support billions of
dollars in new weapons sales to South Korea after North Korea’s largest nuclear test, while his ambassador to the United Nations said the US would seek the strongest possible sanctions against Kim Jong Un’s regime.
Ambassador Nikki Haley said at a meeting of the UN Security Council that Kim was “begging for war” after testing what he claimed was a hydrogen bomb. “Only the strongest sanctions will enable us to resolve this problem through diplomacy,” she said.
Hours after Haley spoke, the Seoul-based Asia Business Daily reported that North Korea was preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile before Saturday. In a phone conversation with South Korean President Moon Jae-In, Trump said he would support “in principle” the US ally fitting its missiles with heavier warheads, boosting its deterrence against North Korea.
Trump and Moon “agreed to maximize pressure on North Korea using all means at their disposal,” according to the White House statement. Trump “provided his conceptual approval” for South Korea to buy “many billions of dollars’ worth of military weapons and equipment” from the US.
Haley said the US would circulate new draft sanctions and wants the Security Council to vote on them September 11. Those sanctions faced resistance from veto-wielding members China and Russia, with Vladimir Putin saying he opposed leveling more “useless and ineffective” sanctions on the North Koreans.
“They’ll eat grass, but they won’t abandon their program unless they feel secure,” Putin told reporters while attending an emerging markets summit in Xiamen, China, which was hosted by Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
South Korea has detected “continued activities” related to North Korea missile tests in the aftermath of its sixth and most powerful nuclear detonation, according to a government official who
asked not to be named in line with government policy.
Meanwhile, the country’s defense ministry declined to comment on the Asia Business Daily report saying the isolated state was observed moving an ICBM to a launch site, and there’s a high chance of a launch before the September 9 national foundation day.
The standoff between North Korea and the US has become the most dangerous foreign crisis facing Trump, eclipsing continued military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Chang Kyung-soo, acting chief of the Defense Ministry’s policy planning office, told lawmakers in Seoul that North Korea was readying a missile firing, but didn’t give a timeframe. The Yonhap News Agency cited the South Korea’s spy agency as saying there is a chance Pyongyang could fire an ICBM into the Pacific Ocean.
North Korea has previously threatened to launch missiles toward Guam. South Korea’s Defense Ministry will review “various possible options” to find a “realistic” solution to North Korea’s threats, spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told reporters in Seoul on Tuesday. He was clarifying Defense Minister Song Young-moo’s comment yesterday that redeployment of US tactical nuclear weapons could be an option. The nation’s navy also began live-fire drills involving 20 vessels — exercises that will continue through Saturday, South Korea has removed the final administrative hurdle for the full deployment of a US missile defense system known as Thaad, which China views as a threat to the
region’s “strategic equilibrium.”
South Korea’s military also conducted a live-fire drill, firing a surface-to-surface ballistic missile and air-to-ground rocket into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, with North Korea’s nuclear test site the virtual target.
Haley reinforced Trump’s threat on Twitter to cut off trade with nations that do business with North Korea, though many observers say that would be an unlikely step. While the US has often threatened a China trade war, Trump is yet
to follow through, in part given
the risk that would create for his own economy. China is North Korea’s main ally and trading partner. It is also the US’s biggest trading partner. Foreign Ministry spoke-sman Geng Shuang said Trump’s trade comments were “neither
objective nor fair.”
“What is definitely unacceptable to us is a situation in which on the one hand we work to resolve this issue peacefully but on the other hand our own interests are subject to sanctions and jeopardized,” Geng said at a regular briefing in Beijing. Trump, who reportedly threatened over the weekend to pull out of the US-South Korea trade agreement, had taken aim at President Moon’s administration.