Trump not bothered by Kim’s recent missile test launches

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump said he wasn’t bothered by recent North Korean ballistic missile tests his national security adviser labeled a violation of UN resolutions, adding that sanctions on the country give him time to reach a disarmament deal with Kim Jong-un.
Trump said he believes the North Korean leader wants to build up his country’s economy, and that giving up nuclear weapons is a way to do that. The US president, who’s on a state visit to Japan, spoke after a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.
Kim “believes like I do that North Korea has tremendous economic potential, like perhaps few other developing nations anywhere in the world, and I think that he’s looking to develop that way,” Trump said at a joint news conference with Abe. “He knows that with nuclear, that’s never going to happen. Only bad can happen. He understands that.”
Abe has said he was open to talks with Kim without preconditions, which would include not making any demands around the two countries’ longstanding stalemate over North Korea’s abductions of Japanese nationals.
If they were to meet, it would be the third summit between the neighbours, following meetings Japan’s then-leader Junichiro Koizumi held with Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, in 2002 and 2004.
Abe also said that the launches violated the UN’s resolutions.
“Japan is North Korea’s neighbour, so naturally we feel the greatest threat. As the leader of that country, Japan, I support President Trump’s actions and plans and I want to give my assistance,” Abe said at the briefing.
Fresh Doubt
North Korea test-fired short-range ballistic missiles on May 4 and May 9, its most significant military operations since November 2017, when it fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that weapons experts said could hit all of the US. The launches cast new doubt on Trump’s effort to secure a disarmament deal with Kim.
National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters in Tokyo before Trump’s arrival that this month’s launches violated United Nations resolutions banning ballistic missile tests, making him the first senior Trump aide to make such an assessment. He nevertheless said the US was eager to restart working-level talks.
Trump tweeted that the firing of “some small weapons” this month “disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me.”

Trump agrees with Kim that Joe Biden has ‘low IQ’
Bloomberg

President Donald Trump said he agreed with North Korea’s insult of former Vice President Joe Biden’s intelligence, calling the Democratic presidential candidate “a disaster” during a trip to Japan.
“Kim Jong-un made a statement that Joe Biden
is a low-IQ individual. He probably is based on his record. I think I agree with him on that,” Trump said at a conference in Tokyo. A US reporter had asked the president whether it had been his intention in a Sunday tweet to appear to side with Kim, a dictator with a poor human rights track record, over a fellow American.
North Korea’s official state news agency KCNA said that Biden, who leads nearly two-dozen major candidates running for his party’s nomination, was a “fool of low IQ” and a “snob bereft of elementary quality as human being.”
Trump said in a tweet said he “smiled when
[Kim] called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”