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Tillerson tries to cool North Korea tensions as Trump boasts about nuclear arsenal

The president claims the U.S. nuclear arms supply is 'far stronger and more powerful than ever before.'

By LOUIS NELSON

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday sought to tamp down concern that the U.S. is headed towards a military conflict with the repressive regime of dictator Kim Jong Un, even as President Donald Trump freshly claimed to have made the U.S. nuclear arsenal “far stronger and more powerful than ever before.”

With rhetoric from Trump stoking fears across the Pacific that North Korea could face “fire and fury” from the U.S if it continues its threatening behavior, Tillerson offered a more measured tone.

“I do not believe that there is any imminent threat in my own view,” Tillerson told reporters aboard his aircraft as he traveled to Guam, one of the U.S. territories in the Pacific most threatened by North Korea. “I think Americans should sleep well at night. I have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days.”

He downplayed Trump’s threat from Tuesday as an expression of readiness in the case of an attack. “I think what the president was just reaffirming is, the United States has the capability to fully defend itself from any attack and defend our allies, and we will do so,” Tillerson said.

Trump, on Twitter, sought to project American strength, trumpeting on Wednesday morning the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal that began under the Obama administration. “My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before,” the president wrote online. “Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”

Amid the rhetoric from both sides, concern mounted among some of the U.S. allies and territories most vulnerable to an attack from the Kim regime. Trump’s comments, made Wednesday from his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he is taking a working vacation for much of August, “are not helpful in an environment that is very tense,” New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English told reporters Wednesday, according to the New Zealand Herald. He said he would convey his concern about Trump’s comments to the president should they continue.

Concern regarding North Korea and its ever-advancing nuclear weapons program has returned to the forefront in recent weeks as the Kim regime has begun testing ballistic missiles capable of hitting the continental U.S. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded that Pyongyang has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to the size necessary to fit its ballistic missiles.

Asked about North Korea and its nuclear program on Tuesday, Trump warned that the repressive regime “best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Wednesday morning, the president retweeted posts from the account of Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” morning show linking to stories headlined “U.S. Air Force jets take off from Guam for training, ensuring they can 'fight tonight'” and “Trump vows U.S. 'power' will meet North Korean threat.”

On Guam, the Pacific island that would likely be among the most vulnerable U.S. territories to a strike from North Korea, Governor Eddie Baza Calvo told residents that there is no threat to his island or to the nearby Mariana Islands, according to the Associated Press. He said he would remain in contact with the admiral in charge of Joint Region Marianas, the military command that oversees the Guam and the Marianas, to ensure Guam is "prepared for any eventuality."

Guam was the target of renewed North Korean threats overnight Tuesday, with Pyongyang announcing it was examining operational plans to strike Guam, which plays host to a large U.S. military presence. In a statement, North Korea’s army threatened to launch missiles and create an "enveloping fire" around Guam.

Madeleine Bordallo, Guam’s delegate to Congress, said she too was working with the Department of Defense to ensure the island’s safety, recalling her efforts to encourage the military to permanently deploy a missile defense system on the island. She called on Trump to work with other nations, noting that China plays an especially large role in any issue involving North Korea, but expressed apprehension regarding the president’s rhetoric.

"The President’s tweet earlier today is concerning and unhelpful and does not lay out a clear strategy on how he will address the growing threats from North Korea. Kim Jung Un’s reckless behavior cannot be tolerated, and I strongly urge the President to explore every avenue to peacefully respond to it and avoid further escalating this situation,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.

In a statement released Wednesday headlined “no change in threat level from recent North Korea events,” Guam’s offices of homeland security and civil defense said it was continuing to monitor, in conjunction with the U.S. military, the threat posed by the Kim regime. In the statement, Guam’s homeland security adviser George Charfauros advised “the community to remain calm, remember that there are defenses in place for threats such as North Korea and to continue to remain prepared for all hazards.”

Despite Tillerson's assurances that there is no "imminent threat" posed by North Korea, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Wednesday that the president's remarks amount to a "red line" drawn by Trump regarding North Korea. In an interview on "CBS This Morning," the S.C. senator laid out two potential paths that could lead to military conflict: One in which North Korea attacks Guam "or some other American interest or our allies," or one in which it continues pursuing an intercontinental ballistic missile.

"President Trump has basically drawn a red line saying he'll never allow North Korea to have an ICBM missile that can hit America with a nuclear weapon on top, he's not going to let that happen, he's not going to contain the threat, he's going to stop the threat," Graham said. Trump will "pick homeland defense over regional stability," the senator added, "and he has to."

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), whose state is also home to a large military presence and would be another potentially vulnerable target for North Korea, called Trump’s comments “unwise” in a post to Twitter. He followed that post with a series of others, calling on the White House to send nominations for key diplomatic posts, including for ambassador to South Korea, to the Senate.

“We need vigorous diplomacy and to beef up missile defense. POTUS statement unwise in tone, substance. No gain from using such language,” the Hawaii lawmaker wrote. “It would be excellent to have a President experienced in foreign policy and government leadership next time.”

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, called Trump’s “fire and fury” remark “irresponsible and alarming” in his own flurry of Twitter posts. "Instead of threats & over-the-top rhetoric, we need to pursue a smart, long-term strategy to address these growing threats,” he wrote. “Among the steps we should immediately consider are further economic sanctions aimed at those who continue to trade w/ North Korea."

Lawmakers criticizing the president, a group that also included Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), seemed to frustrate White House adviser Sebastian Gorka, who likened the heightened tensions with North Korea to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

"It saddens me. These are the moments when we have to come together as a nation and support the executive," Gorka told "Fox & Friends" Wednesday morning. "Whether you voted for him or not, whether they're Democrat or whether they're Republican, these are trying times. During the Cuban Missile Crisis we stood behind JFK. This is analogous to the Cuban Missile Crisis."