US President Donald Trump escalated his threats against North Korea over its nuclear challenge on Tuesday, threatening to “totally destroy” the country of 26 million people and mocking its leader, Kim Jong Un, as a “rocket man.”
In a hard-edged speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Trump offered a grim portrait of a world in peril, adopted a more confrontational approach to solving global challenges from Iran to Venezuela, and gave an unabashed defense of US sovereignty.
“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump told the 193-member world body, sticking closely to a script.
As loud, startled murmurs filled the hall, Trump described Kim in an acid tone, saying, “Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime.”
His remarks rattled the leaders gathered in the green-marbled UN General Assembly hall, where minutes earlier UN Secretary–General Antonio Guterres appealed for statesmanship, saying, “We must not sleepwalk our way into war.”
Trump’s most direct military threat to attack North Korea, in his debut appearance at the General Assembly, was his latest expression of concern about Pyongyang’s repeated launching of ballistic missiles over Japan and underground nuclear tests.
His advisers have said that the American President is concerned about North Korea’s advances in missile technology and the few means available for a peaceful response without China’s help.
One man in the audience covered his face with his hands shortly after Trump made his “totally destroy” comment. Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom crossed her arms.
“It was the wrong speech, at the wrong time, to the wrong audience,” Wallstrom later told the BBC.
“North Korea’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A junior North Korean diplomat sat in the delegation’s front-row seat for Trump’s speech,” the North Korean UN mission said.
Cabinet contrast
Trump’s saber-rattling rhetoric, with the bare-knuckled style he used to win election last November, was in contrast to the comments of some of his own Cabinet members who have stated a preference for a diplomatic solution.
Reaction around the United States was mixed. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, tweeted that Trump, a fellow Republican, “gave a strong and needed challenge” to UN members to confront global challenges.
But Democrat Ed Markey of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee denounced Trump’s remarks in a CNN interview, saying the president had yet to exhaust his other options in encouraging Pyongyang to negotiate.
“He engages in escalatory language that only induces further paranoia in Kim,” Markey said, adding, “The least we should be able to say is that we tried, we really tried, to avoid a nuclear showdown between our two countries.”
In a thunderous 41-minute speech, Trump also took aim at Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional influence, Venezuela’s collapsing democracy and the threat of Islamist extremists and criticized the Cuban government. “Major portions of the world are in conflict and some in fact are going to hell,” he said.
His speech recalled the fiery nationalist language of his January 20 inaugural address when he pledged to end what he called an American carnage of rusted factories and crime.
“Hostile” behaviour
His strongest words were directed at North Korea. He urged the United Nations member states to work together to isolate the Kim government until it ceases its “hostile” behavior.
In what may have been a veiled prod at China, the North’s major trading partner, Trump said, “It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world with nuclear conflict.”
The UN Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006 and Guterres appealed for the 15-member body to maintain its unity.
Turning to Iran, Trump called the 2015 nuclear deal—negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama—an embarrassment and hinted that he may not recertify the agreement when it comes up for a mid-October deadline. “I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it,” he said.
He called Iran an “economically depleted rogue state” that exports violence.
There was no immediate comment from either Iran’s UN delegation or its foreign ministry in Tehran.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in his UN speech, said that his country would not close the door to negotiations over the North Korea crisis and staunchly defended the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “Renouncing it would be a grave error,” he said.
Trump said the United States does not seek to impose its will on other nations and will respect other countries’ sovereignty. He said that the US military would soon be the strongest it has ever been.
Trump called the collapsing situation in Venezuela “completely unacceptable” and warned that the United States was considering what further actions it can take. “We cannot stand by and watch,” he said.
Venezuela rejected Trump’s threats and said it was prepared to resist any US actions, even a military invasion. Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza called Trump a white supremacist who was returning the world to the Cold War of the 1980s.
“He came to the house of peace and promoted war and the destruction of certain countries,” Arreaza told reporters.