Trump to confront North Korea threat ‘very strongly'

By Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton 

US President Donald Trump has vowed to confront North Korea "very strongly" following its latest missile test, urging nations to show Pyongyang that there would be consequences for its weapons programme.

North Korea test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday., one that some experts believe has the range to reach the US states of Alaska and Hawaii.

There have also been fears it could reach US Pacific Northwest, with North Korea saying it could carry a large nuclear warhead.

Speaking at a news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Trump said Korea was "a threat, and we will confront it very strongly".

He said the United States was considering "severe things" for North Korea, but that he would not draw a "red line" of the kind that his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, had drawn but not enforced, on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

“They are behaving in a very, very dangerous manner and something will have to be done."

The issue presents Trump, who took office in January, with perhaps his biggest foreign policy challenge.

It has put pressure on his relationship with China's President Xi Jinping, whom Trump had pressed without success to rein in Pyongyang.

The United States said yesterday that it was ready to use force if necessary to stop North Korea's nuclear missile programme, prompting China to call for all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint.

Meeting in Germany ahead of a G20 summit, Xi told South Korean President Moon Jae-in that China supported the new South Korean government's efforts to restart dialogue and contacts with the North, and that all sides should strictly abide by UN Security Council resolutions, the state news agency Xinhua said.

‘Unforgivable’

South Korean presidential spokesman Park Su-hyun gave a more robust account of the conversation, telling reporters that the two men had agreed that North Korea's missile test was "unforgivable", and had discussed stepping up pressure and sanctions.

Trump, who was heading for Hamburg later on Thursday to attend the summit, is due to meet with Xi there.

His frustration that Beijing has not done more to clamp down on North Korea prompted him to tweet on Wednesday: "Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us - but we had to give it a try!"

Trump did not mention China specifically in his remarks in Poland, but his message that other countries needed to do more was clearly meant for Beijing.

"President Duda and I call on all nations to confront this global threat and publicly demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for their very, very bad behaviour," he said.