President Donald Trump clarified his previous statements Friday, stating that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un will regret it if he does not back down.
“If he utters one [overt] threat … or if he does anything with respect to Guam, he will truly regret it, and he will regret it fast,” Trump said Friday, referencing North Korean warnings that it intends to launch multiple missiles in the direction of the island territory in the Pacific.
“I hope they are going to fully understand the gravity of what I said,” the president explained to reporters.
North Korea is a “country that has misbehaved for many many years, decades,” Trump said. “I have no choice but to take it on.”
These statements are only the latest in the president’s tirade against the North Korean regime, which has been making bombastic threats and firing off missiles left and right. Since the start of the year, the North has tested new short-, medium-, intermediate-, and long-range missiles.
The president has been issuing strong threats throughout the week.
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump declared to reporters Tuesday. “They will be met with the fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said, they will be met with the fire and fury and, frankly, power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
“I will tell you this, if North Korea does anything in terms of even thinking about attack of anybody that we love or we represent or our allies or us, they can be very, very nervous,” he explained Thursday. “They should be very nervous. Things will happen to them like they never thought possible.”
“It’s not a dare, it’s a statement,” he added.
Trump escalated Friday morning, signaling that a military solution is not simply on the table, but ready to go if North Korea does not change course.
“Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path,” the president tweeted out early Friday.
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