Will move to the next step if N Korea summit doesn't work out, warns Trump

President Donald Trump today said the US will go on to the next step if his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un does not materialise, as he sought to blame China for a change in Pyongyang's stance on the historic meeting between the two leaders.

A cloud of uncertainty continues to hover over Trump's meeting with Kim in Singapore as North Korea on Tuesday abruptly threatened to pull out of the planned June 12 summit, blaming US demands for "unilateral nuclear abandonment". Pyongyang has also taken strong exceptions to military drills between the US and South Korea.

"We'll see what happens. If the meeting happens, it happens. And if it doesn't, we go on to the next step," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Seeking to placate Kim, Trump offered him guarantees of staying in power if he abandons nuclear weapons, but threatened that a diplomacy failure could lead to a situation where the North Korean leader could suffer the same fate as Libya's Moamer Kadhafi, who was overthrown and killed by rebels.