North Korea hits back at Trump, threatens H-bomb test in Pacific

SEOUL, South Korea – Kim Jong Un on Friday described Donald Trump as “deranged” and Pyongyang’s foreign minister said North Korea may test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific as the recalcitrant nation hit back at the U.S. president after the latest attempt to curb its nuclear program.

Trump signed an executive order Thursday boosting the United States’ ability to sanction foreign banks, individuals and companies that facilitate trade with North Korea.

The move “will cut off sources of revenue that fund (North Korea’s) efforts to develop the deadliest weapons known to humankind,” Trump said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Responding to Trump’s maiden address at the U.N. on Tuesday in which he threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if it attacked the U.S. or its allies, Kim issued a rare statement Friday describing the speech as “unprecedented rude nonsense.”

Kim said Trump’s “mentally deranged behavior” and his threat to “totally destroy” North Korea “convinced me … that the path I chose is correct and that is the one I have to follow to the last.”

Kim said Trump would “pay dearly” and after his “ferocious declaration” of war, North Korea would consider a “corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure.”

When asked by reporters in New York what the countermeasure could be, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said: “It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific.”

“We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong Un,” Ri added, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

The international community has been increasing pressure on North Korea over a series of recent missile and nuclear tests, and the issue has been a major point of discussion at the U.N. General Assembly.

The new U.S. order will allow Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to blacklist foreign banks that conduct or facilitate significant transactions tied to North Korean trade or with those under existing sanctions.

“Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward they can choose to do business with the United States or North Korea but not both,” Mnuchin told reporters.

“We call on all countries around the world to join us by cutting off all trade and financial transactions with North Korea.”

The order also will allow the U.S. to sanction those involved in industries, including fishing, technology, textiles and manufacturing, that finance the North Korean regime, as well as those involved in the operation of the country’s ports or in exporting and importing goods and services.

Trump noted the order comes as China’s central bank had told Chinese banks to immediately stop doing business with North Korea.

Mnuchin said he had alerted Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of China’s central bank, of the move Thursday morning, but stressed the move was not primarily directed at China.

China is North Korea’s largest trading partner, and the U.S. has been pressuring Beijing to do more to pressure Pyongyang.

The move allows the U.S. to target entities in third countries that serve as conduits for the North Korean regime, but Trump stressed that it “targets only one country and that country is North Korea.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi later told the U.N. there was “still hope for peace” with North Korea.

Wang urged Pyongyang “not to go further in its dangerous direction” and called on all parties involved in the conflict to play a constructive role in de-escalating tensions.

Trump announced the move at a lunch meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae In as the allies discussed the threat from Pyongyang and steps going forward.

Abe noted two ballistic missile launches that flew over Japan in the past two weeks, calling the acts “intolerable” and praising Trump for bringing the allies together for talks.

“We are going into the new stage of pressure from the viewpoint of exercising the stronger pressure, new pressures,” Abe said. “I welcome the new sanction measures of the United States, and I’d like to offer my heartfelt support for that.”

Moon earlier told Trump that North Korea’s ongoing provocations are “extremely deplorable” and praised Trump’s tough words.

“We do not desire the collapse of North Korea, we do not seek unification by absorption or artificial means,” Moon told the U.N. General Assembly.

But Pyongyang must “immediately cease making reckless choices that could lead to its own isolation and downfall and choose the path of dialogue.”