After North Korea Nuclear Test, Trump Saves Harshest Words for South Korea

Source: NY Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday called North Korea’s biggest nuclear test to date “very hostile and dangerous,” but his most significant rhetorical escalation was against South Korea, a close United States ally, which he accused of talking about “appeasement.”

Mr. Trump expressed his frustration in three sternly worded tweets early Sunday that were more muted than the previous taunts and threats he has directed at North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong-un.

“North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States,” he wrote at 7:30 a.m., about 10 hours after reports of a huge explosion, measured by the American authorities at a magnitude of 6.3, was detected in the area of a nuclear test site in the North. As he has done in the past, Mr. Trump placed responsibility for responding to the crisis on North Korea’s closest neighbors, China and South Korea.

But he took a notably harsh line on Twitter against the new liberal government of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, amid an escalating dispute over trade that threatens to weaken a central partnership in the region as North Korea races to develop a nuclear warhead capable of striking the continental United States.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/us/trump-north-south-korea-nuclear.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

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Withdrawing from trade agreements, alienating allies, and ratcheting up tensions with enemies. Trump seems hellbent on making the U.S. a pariah. Then again, a lot of Trump's base, and perhaps even some on the left, support Trump's anti-trade and anti-immigration positions.