Trump warns ‘major, major’ conflict with North Korea is possible

The statement comes ahead of the US president's 100th day in office, as a standoff with the isolated East Asian country drags on over its nuclear and missile programs.

Commandos march across the Kim Il Sung square on April 15, 2017, during a military parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, to celebrate the 105th birth anniversary of Kim Il Sung, the country’s late founderShow more

NEW YORK // Donald Trump has warned that a war is likely with North Korea unless a diplomatic solution can be found to the stand-off over the pariah state’s nuclear missile programme.

Mr Trump highlighted the risk of a “major, major conflict” at the end of a week when the US tightened sanctions on Pyongyang ahead of a United Nations Security Council meeting on the issue.

The stern message comes as American officials try to clarify their stance on North Korea after a series of mixed signals during Mr Trump’s first 100 days in office. At the same time, the president’s stalled domestic agenda — this week he unveiled plans for tax reform that immediately ran into opposition among some Republicans — has made an early foreign policy success all the more urgent.

Before taking office, Mr Trump was told by Barack Obama, his predecessor, that North Korea would be his biggest challenge.

Satellite evidence suggests Kim Jong Un’s reclusive regime is ready to conduct its sixth nuclear test.

Although it has not yet managed to miniaturise its warheads, US military officers believe trials of ballistic missiles have reached the point where its conventional arsenal could now reach Hawaii, which is American soil.

“There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea,” Mr Trump told Reuters in an interview at the Oval Office.

“We’d love to solve things diplomatically but it’s very difficult.”

The US has asked China to increase pressure on North Korea, harnessing its power as Pyongyang’s biggest trade partner. Mr Trump lavished praise on Chinese president Xi Jinping for Chinese assistance in trying to rein in North Korea. The two leaders met in Florida earlier this month.

“I believe he is trying very hard. He certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death. He doesn’t want to see it. He is a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well,” Mr Trump said. “With that being said, he loves China and he loves the people of China. I know he would like to be able to do something, perhaps it’s possible that he can’t.”

Any direct US military action would run the risk of massive North Korean retaliation and huge casualties in Japan and South Korea and among US forces in both countries.

When asked if he considered North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to be rational, Mr Trump said he was operating from the assumption that he is rational, and noted that Kim had taken over his country at an early age.

“He’s 27 years old. His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want, but that is not easy, especially at that age,” Mr Trump said. “I’m not giving him credit or not giving him credit, I’m just saying that’s a very hard thing to do. As to whether or not he’s rational, I have no opinion on it. I hope he’s rational.”

Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, said last week that Beijing had warned the country it would impose unilateral sanctions if it conducted any more nuclear tests.

It has already banned imports of North Korean coal and oil shipments could follow, according to local media reports.

Chairing a UN Security Council meeting on Friday to build global economic, diplomatic and military pressure against Pyongyang, Mr Tillerson called on UN member states to downgrade diplomatic relations with Pyongyang and underscored the urgency of action.

“With each successive detonation and missile test North Korea pushes north-east Asia and the world closer to instability and broader conflict,” said Mr Tillerson. “The threat of a North Korean attack on Seoul or Tokyo is real.”

But China’s foreign minister Wang Yi warned against potential “chaos” on the Korean peninsula and said dialogue and negotiations were “the only right choice” to address the threat from North Korea.

“The use of force does not solve differences and will only lead to bigger disasters,” Mr Wang told the Security Council.

However, some of Mr Trump’s other comments — such as demanding South Korea pay a billion dollars for an anti-missile shield and renegotiate a free-trade agreement — were hardly reassuring. Nor were they helpful to his secretary of state at a time when Mr Trump needs a united front against Mr Kim.

“It’s phenomenal. It’s the most incredible equipment you’ve ever seen — shoots missiles right out of the sky,” Mr Trump said of the Terminal High Altitude Defence System (THAAD), which is designed to intercept North Korean ballistic missiles.

“And it protects them [South Korea] and I want to protect them. We’re going to protect them. But they should pay for that, and they understand that.”

The missile shield is owned and operated by the US. It was already a controversial issue in South Korea where many are opposed to its presence even before Mr Trump insisted on South Korea paying for it. But the US military began deployment of THAAD in early March, despite strong opposition from both South Korea and China. Moon Jae-in, the favourite to win South Korea’s presidential election on May 9, wanted deployment to be delayed until after the next administration is in place in Seoul and can review the decision, while the Chinese are worried that the system’s powerful radar can be used to spy into its territory.

President Trump also described a five-year-old trade pact as “unacceptable” and said it would be renegotiated, sending shock waves through Seoul’s financial markets.

Mr Trump’s focus on foreign policy is a reminder that his domestic agenda has faltered as he marks 100th day in office on Saturday. Many of the promises he made for his first 100 days remain unfulfilled.

His pre-election pledges included starting a $1 trillion project to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure, immediately suspending the Syrian refugee resettlement programme and finding full funding for a wall on the Mexican border. None of those things has happened.

A second bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare is still short of the support it needs to make its way through Congress.

And a one-page proposal to overhaul the US tax system — mostly a package of cuts, some of which benefit the super-rich — released last week is thin on detail and has already attracted criticism from among Mr Trump’s own ranks.

Within a day of Mr Trump’s top economic adviser Gary Cohn and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin releasing a dozen bullet points outlining the administration’s tax goals, at least three congressmen from the president’s own Republican party criticised one of the key provisions — eliminating the deductibility of state and local taxes — estimated to raise $1.3 trillion over a decade.

Sceptics want to know how the country can afford such generous cuts without vastly increasing the federal debt. Republicans in high-tax Democrat states such as New York, New Jersey and California are also worried about a proposal to scrap a provision which allows local tax payments to be written off against federal tax.