North Korea: US-Japan weapons deals will help counter threat, says Trump

US President Donald Trump has said that large Japanese orders for US-made military equipment will help counter the threat from North Korean ballistic missiles, as he called the regime a “threat to the civilised world” on the second day of his tour of Asia.

In recent months, Pyongyang has test-launched two missiles over the Japanese island of Hokkaido as well as threatened to “sink” Japan into the sea.

At a press conference in Tokyo, with Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe, Trump said that Japan should have shot down the missiles. He added that buying missile defences would boost both the US economy and Japanese security.

“[Abe] will shoot missiles out of the sky when he completes the purchase of lots of equipment from the United States,” Trump said. “One very important thing is that Prime Minister Abe is going to be purchasing massive amounts of military equipment, as he should.

“We make the best by far … it’s a lot of jobs for us, and a lot of safety for  Japan,” he said.

The US would consider all options, including military force, to counter North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, said Trump as he also defended his provocative choice of words to describe Kim Jong-un.

Trump has referred to Kim as “little rocket man” and threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if the US and its allies were threatened.

“Some people say my rhetoric is very strong, but look what has happened with very weak rhetoric in the last 25 years,” Trump said, declaring that the era of strategic patience favoured by previous US administrations was over.

Abe, who has been unwavering in his support of Trump’s line on the nuclear crisis, noted that previous efforts to strike deals with the regime in the North had failed.

“Each time, North Korea broke its promises and bought itself time to continue developing nuclear weapons,” he said. “There should be no talks for talks’ sake. Now is the time for Japan and the US to exert maximum pressure on North Korea, using all possible means.”

Abe said he welcomed the stronger pressure being applied by China after sanctions were agreed by the UN security council, adding: “It is incumbent on China to play a greater role in getting North Korea to end its development of nuclear weapons.

“Japan supports President Trump when he says that all options are on the table. I reaffirmed [to Trump] that the US and Japan are 100% together.”

The former US Secretary of State, John Kerry, on Monday warned that Trump’s personalisation of the dispute with Kim had only served to harden positions and make a settlement harder to reach.

Speaking at Chatham House in London, Kerry, top diplomat in the second term of the Obama administration, said Trump had given North Korea a good reason to keep nuclear weapons by threatening in an address to the United Nations in September to “totally destroy” the country. 

“We would be greatly helped by not having a personal Twitter war that could make it far more dangerous,” Kerry said.

Insisting diplomacy is not exhausted, he urged Trump to persuade China when he arrives in Beijing later this week that it has many options for putting pressure on North Korea to come to the negotiating table and agree a freeze in military activity on both sides.

 “100% of the fuel that drives every car, every truck, every aeroplane comes from China and 100% of the banking, such as it is, that North Korea is able to effect, comes from Beijing,” he said.

“Beijing has every possibility in the world to put greater pressure on North Korea. Some people say they are worried about the implosion of the regime, and the stability of the peninsula. We are not close to the point of implosion. China has many tools available in its tool box to put on pressure.”

On Sunday, Trump suggested that he would be open to talks with Pyongyang’s leader.

“I would sit down with anybody. I don’t think it’s strength or weakness, I think sitting down with people is not a bad thing,” he said in a television interview. “So I would certainly be open to doing that but we’ll see where it goes, I think we’re far too early.”

North Korea responded with another personal attack on Trump, whom Kim in September labelled a “rogue” and a “dotard”.

The Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling Workers’ party, called the US president the “lunatic old man of the White House” and said there was no telling when he would trigger a nuclear war.