Trump warns North Korea: Military is 'locked and loaded'
President Donald Trump on Friday offered a fresh threat of force against North Korea, writing on Twitter that "military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded" if the regime of Kim Jong Un should "act unwisely."
"Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!" Trump added in reference to the North's development of nuclear weapons despite increased United Nations sanctions.
North Korea, however, kept up its verbal salvos as well. A commentary in a state-run newspaper said the "U.S. military warmongers are running amok" and warned that the "the U.S. and its vassal forces will dearly pay for the harshest sanctions and pressure and reckless military provocations."
Trump's latest warning came a day after he cautioned North Korea that "things will happen to them like they never thought possible" should the isolated country attack the United States or its allies.
Trump also told reporters that his previous day's threat of "fire and fury" may not have been "tough enough," even as he sought to reassure an anxious world that he has the situation under control.
The escalation in rhetoric by Trump - which some U.S. leaders and allies have criticized - comes as North Korea has stepped up its threats against the United States, including a potential missile launch landing near the U.S. territory of Guam.
Trump's tweet and statements to reporters on Thursday came from Bedminster, New Jersey, where he is on what the White House called a working vacation at his private golf club.
Trump's rhetoric has become considerably more bellicose in recent days.
Just this past weekend, the administration was congratulating itself for orchestrating a unanimous U.N. Security Council vote to sharply increase sanctions against Pyongyang, describing steady diplomatic and economic pressure as the keystone of its strategy.
Instead, Trump said Thursday that the administration is now examining its entire military posture in Asia and that "we are preparing for many different alternative events."
He said that he had already decided to increase the "antimissile" budget "by many billions of dollars, because of North Korea and other reasons."
In a commentary published Friday, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party said in typically belligerent language that "the U.S. has been seized with anxiety and terror" since North Korea conducted its second intercontinental ballistic missile test last month.
The United States is now "fearful of when weapons of Korea will shower shells on its military bases for aggression and mainland," the paper said, accusing Trump by name of creating a "horrible atmosphere" by saying any war would be fought on the Korean Peninsula.
"That is why U.S. military warmongers are running amok, vociferating about introduction of strategic assets into the Korean peninsula and 'preemptive attack,'" the commentary said.
"It is tragedy that the reckless and hysteric behaviors may reduce the U.S. mainland to ashes any moment," it continued, saying that North Korea would emerge victorious from the standoff that has lasted since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
"The U.S. and its vassal forces will dearly pay for the harshest sanctions and pressure and reckless military provocations against the DPRK," the commentary concluded, using the official abbreviation for North Korea.
World leaders have increasingly called on Trump and Kim to dial down their comments and posturing. Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said the bombast from both sides was "going over the top" and urged for a return to diplomacy. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said there is no military solution to the North Korea crisis, and called the escalating rhetoric the "wrong answer."