Fair trade is not fair to US people: Trump lashes out at Trudeau again

US President Donald Trump issued a volley of tweets on Monday venting anger on some of Washington's closest NATO allies over the United State's trade deficit, following a divisive G7 meeting in Canada. "Fair trade is now to be called fool trade if it is not reciprocal," said Trump, who flew from Canada to Singapore for a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "Not fair to the people of America! $800 billion trade deficit," he said. 

"Why should I, as president of the United State, allow countries to continue to make massive trade surpluses, as they have for decades, while our farmers, workers & taxpayers have such a big and unfair price to pay?" Trump went on to lambast fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) for paying disproportionately less than the United States to maintain the Western alliance. "The US pays close to the entire cost of NATO - protecting many of these same countries that rip us off on trade (they pay only a fraction of the cost - and laugh!)," he tweeted. "The European Union had a $151 billion surplus - should pay much more for military!"

As Trump, Kim gear up for historic summit, here's what to watch out for

President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un begin their historic summit Tuesday in Singapore, a meeting that could lead to peace between countries that have technically been at war for 68 years -- or swiftly end in new recriminations. Trump has said the public will be able to tell how the summit goes by what he says afterward. 

If he resumes talking about his “maximum pressure” campaign to squeeze Kim’s regime, he said Thursday, “you’ll know the negotiation did not do well.” It would’ve been hard to imagine the two leaders reaching this point just nine months ago. Trump labeled the North Korean leader “Little Rocket Man” in a speech to the UN General Assembly. Kim then called Trump a “mentally deranged U. S. dotard” and a “frightened dog.” They threatened each other with nuclear war. The stakes remain dizzyingly high and the developments are likely to come rapid-fire. Here’s a reader’s guide to some of Bloomberg’s best analysis, commentary, and breaking news ahead of the Trump-Kim summit:

Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are finally meeting on June 12: Pompeo

The historic meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader is set to take place on June 12, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told lawmakers on Wednesday.

Testifying before a powerful Congressional committee, Pompeo identified de-nuclearisation of North Korea as one of the top national security priority of the Trump Administration.

"The maximum pressure campaign of diplomatic and economic sanctions is bearing fruit with the historic meeting set to take place on June 12," Pompeo said in his testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

This campaign, he said, has been undertaken in concert with an unprecedented number of allies and partners.

"Our posture will not change until we see credible steps taken toward the complete, verifiable, and irreversible de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula. We are clear-eyed about the regime's history," Pompeo said.

Verification a critical factor in North Korea denuclearisation programme

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has pledged to dismantle his nuclear test site, and supposedly, he’s even inviting the international press into his usually off-limits kingdom to witness the extravaganza. The gesture is meant to prove he’s serious about eliminating his weapons program – and he wants all the world to see it.

But be warned: This could be a show of the dog-and-pony variety. Some experts claim the site has already been pulverized by previous tests and is now of little use. If that’s the case, Kim’s move, at best, may be merely symbolic; at worst, it could be a ruse, meant to convince a hopeful world that he’s ditching his nukes when he’s not. How can we know what the truth really is?

And here we find the one factor that may kill off any nuclear deal with North Korea: verification.

The U.S. and South Korea will need to be assured the North Koreans are doing what they say they’re doing. Any agreement will have to include some sort of process to inspect Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities and verify that every aspect of Kim’s weapons-making program has been eliminated.

Look forward to meeting Kim Jong-un; US talking to N Korea directly: Trump

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the US was in direct talks with North Korea "at a very high level" ahead of his planned summit with Kim Jong-un.

The two countries were looking at five potential venues for the summit, "but it is not in the United States", Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago where he was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

"We've also started talking to North Korea directly.We have had direct talks at very high levels -- extremely high levels -- with North Korea," Trump said before a restricted bilateral meeting with Abe.

"I really believe there's a lot of goodwill. A lot of good things are happening.We'll see what happens.As I always say, we'll see what happens.Because ultimately, it's the end result that counts, not the fact that we're thinking about having a meeting or having a meeting," he said.

Kim Jong-un ready to discuss denuclearisation with US: Trump admin

North Korean officials have told their US counterparts that Kim Jong Un is ready to discuss denuclearisation, an assurance that could pave the way for a meeting with President Donald Trump, reports said on Sunday.

It is the first time the offer was made directly to Washington, after it was previously conveyed through South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong.

"The US has confirmed that Kim Jong Un is willing to discuss the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula," a Trump administration official told The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post on Sunday.

Washington stunned observers when it announced last month it had agreed to a historic first meeting between Trump and Kim to be held by the end of May.

But Pyongyang has not followed up with Washington since, which the Journal suggested may indicate that Seoul overstated the North's willingness to negotiate over its own nuclear arsenal.

No specifics have yet emerged concerning the date or venue of the proposed summit.

Good chance Kim Jong Un will give up his country's nuclear weapons: Trump

US President Donald Trump, who has agreed to meet with Kim Jong Un, said on Wednesday there is a now a good chance the North Korean leader will give up his country's nuclear weapons.

"For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility," Trump wrote in an early morning tweet.

This is what he tweeted:

For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility. Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 28 March 2018

His comments came as Kim completed a secretive and unprecedented visit to Beijing on Wednesday as the two countries seek to repair frayed ties before Pyongyang's landmark summits with Washington and earlier with South Korea.

I too have a 'Nuclear button': Trump warns 'food-starved' North Korea's Kim

United States President Donald Trump has hit back at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, saying that he too has a nuclear button on his desk which was much bigger and powerful than his.

"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the 'Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times'. Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" Trump said on twitter on Tuesday.

Trump's tweet came days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned the United States that "the nuclear button is always on the desk of my office".

"The entire mainland of the US is within the range of our nuclear weapons and the nuclear button is always on the desk of my office. They should accurately be aware that this is not a threat but a reality," he said, according to a CNN translation of his speech, during his national New Year's address.

He also declared that North Korea was "a responsible nuclear nation that loves peace" and that "the US cannot wage a war" against it.

Rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, which conducted its largest nuclear test in September and fired off a powerful ICBM in late November, have raised concerns worldwide.
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Kim Jong-un's right-hand man killed by North Korean death squad: Reports

Hwang Pyong-so, a key member of Kim Jong-un's inner circle and touted as a powerful military figure, has mysteriously vanished from public life.

The vice marshal, who held the most senior position in North Korea's military, hasn't been seen in public since October 13.

This has subsequently sparked rumours that he was executed by a North Korean death squad after allegations of bribery, the local media reported.

According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea's spy agency reported Hwang and his deputy, Kim Won-hong, were expelled from the military's General Politico Bureau and "punished." The agency added it was looking into details about their punishment.

The news agency reported that Kim Won-hong was sentenced to one of North Korea's prison camps. As for Hwang, reports said that Jong-un has indeed killed him.

Kim has previously killed his enemies via a variety of gruesome methods, including shooting them with anti-aircraft weaponry at a close distance and feeding them to a pack of ravenous dogs.
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Let's talk without preconditions if you are excited about it: US to N Korea

The United States is ready to begin talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament without prior conditions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday.

"We're ready to have the first meeting without preconditions," Tillerson told a meeting on the crisis at the Atlantic Council policy forum in Washington.

"Let's just meet and let's talk about the weather if you want and talk about whether it's going to be a square table or a round table if that's what you're excited about."

This appeared to represent a softening in the US position, seeing as officials had previously demanded that Kim Jong-Un's regime demonstrate a willingness to consider giving up their arsenal.

But elsewhere in his remarks, Tillerson insisted the US- led pressure campaign of economic and diplomatic sanctions would continue until "the first bomb drops."

He stressed that Washington "simply cannot accept a nuclear armed North Korea" and that President Donald Trump "intends to ensure that they do not have deliverable nuclear weapons to (reach) the shores of the United States.
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North Korea fires ICBMs that can hit DC, NYC

North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Wednesday that can reach the "whole" American mainland, in a bold act of defiance against US President Donald Trump after he put the country back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism. The latest launch drew swift global condemnation with Pyongyang's ally Beijing expressing "grave concern".

The Hwasong-15 missile, described by the state television as the country's "most powerful", was launched around 3 a.m. local time. It landed in Japanese waters but flew higher than any other missile the North had previously tested.

North Korea claimed the entire US mainland was within reach after "successfully" testing the missile that it claimed can carry a "super-large heavy warhead" to unprecedented heights of almost 4,500 kilometres.

State news agency KCNA said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally signed off on the launch of the missile that reached an altitude of 4,475 kilometre and flew 950 kilometre in 53 minutes.

The distance travelled appeared to be significantly greater than that of the two previous ICBMs, which flew for 37 minutes on July 4 and for 47 minutes on July 28.

Trump, together with his counterparts in South Korea and Japan and the UN Secretary General, condemned the launch. "We will take care of it," he told reporters at the White House, calling it a "situation we will handle".
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US quietly defying Trump rejection, pursuing direct diplomacy with N Korea

The United States is quietly pursuing direct diplomacy with North Korea, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday, despite US President Donald Trump’s public assertion that such talks are a waste of time.

Using the so-called “New York channel,” Joseph Yun, US negotiator with North Korea, has been in contact with diplomats at Pyongyang’s United Nations mission, the official said, at a time when an exchange of bellicose insults between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fueled fears of military conflict.

While U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on October 17 said he would continue “diplomatic efforts ... until the first bomb drops,” the official’s comments were the clearest sign the United States was directly discussing issues beyond the release of American prisoners, despite Trump having dismissed direct talks as pointless.

There is no sign, however, that the behind-the-scenes communications have improved a relationship vexed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, the death of US university student Otto Warmbier days after his release by Pyongyang in June and the detention of three other Americans.

Word of quiet engagement with Pyongyang comes despite Trump’s comments, North Korea’s weapons advances and suggestions by some U.S. and South Korean officials that Yun’s interactions with North Koreans had been reined in.
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You are safe if you don't join US action: N Korea tells states at UN forum

North Korea warned countries at the United Nations on Monday in a statement: don’t join the United States in military action against the Asian state and you will be safe from retaliation.

The caution was contained in a copy of North Korean Deputy UN Ambassador Kim In Ryong’s prepared remarks for a discussion on nuclear weapons by a UN General Assembly committee. However, Kim did not read that section out loud.

“As long as one does not take part in the US military actions against the DPRK (North Korea), we have no intention to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other country,” according to Kim’s prepared remarks.

“The entire US mainland is within our firing range and if the US dares to invade our sacred territory even an inch it will not escape our severe punishment in any part of the globe,” the statement read.

Tensions have soared between the United States and North Korea following a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
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The world once laughed at North Korean cyberpower

When North Korean hackers tried to steal $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve last year, only a spelling error stopped them. They were digitally looting an account of the Bangladesh Central Bank, when bankers grew suspicious about a withdrawal request that had misspelled “foundation” as “fandation.”

Even so, Kim Jong-un’s minions still got away with $81 million in that heist.

Then only sheer luck enabled a 22-year-old British hacker to defuse the biggest North Korean cyberattack to date, a ransomware attack last May that failed to generate much cash but brought down hundreds of thousands of computers across dozens of countries — and briefly crippled Britain’s National Health Service.

Their track record is mixed, but North Korea’s army of more than 6,000 hackers is undeniably persistent, and undeniably improving, according to American and British security officials who have traced these attacks and others back to the North.

Amid all the attention on Pyongyang’s progress in developing a nuclear weapon capable of striking the continental United States, the North Koreans have also quietly developed a cyberprogram that is stealing hundreds of millions of dollars and proving capable of unleashing global havoc.
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North Korea fires 2nd missile over Japan in a month: Top 10 developments

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will meet at 3 pm EDT (1900 GMT) on Friday over the latest missile test by North Korea at the request of the United States and Japan.

North Korea on Friday launched a missile that flew over northern Japan before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, the South Korean military said. The still-unidentified missile was launched around 6.30 am (local time) from east of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to South Korea's military Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The officials said that the rocket could have reached an altitude of 770 km and flew for a total of some 3,700 km. According to the Japanese government's missile alert system, the missile overflew the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and fell into the Pacific Ocean, Efe news reported.
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North Korea threatens to 'sink' Japan, turn US to 'ashes and darkness'

North Korea has threatened to sink Japan and said the US should be "beaten to death like a rabid dog" after the two countries spearheaded fresh UN Security Council sanctions in response to the regime' s nuclear test earlier this month, a media report said.

The Korea Asia-Pacific peace committee, which oversees North Korea's relations with the outside world, described the UN Security Council, which passed a new round of sanctions earlier this week, as a "tool of evil" in the pay of Washington, and called for it to be broken up, the Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday.

"The four islands of the (Japanese) archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche," the committee said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

It is the first time that Pyongyang has issued an explicit threat to Japan since it fired a medium-range ballistic missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in August end.

"Japan is no longer needed to exist near us," the committee said.

The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously in support of a US-drafted resolution condemning the missile test conducted by North Korea on September 3 and imposed measures that include a ban on its textile imports and restrictions on oil exports to the country.
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North Korea launches another missile over Japan

North Korea on Friday launched a missile that flew over northern Japan before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, the South Korean military said.

The still-unidentified missile was launched around 6.30 a.m. (local time) from east of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to South Korea's military Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The officials said that the rocket could have reached an altitude of 770 km and flew for a total of some 3,700 km. According to the Japanese government's missile alert system, the missile overflew the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and fell into the Pacific Ocean, Efe news reported.

Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the missile fell into the ocean some 2,000 km from the town of Erimo in eastern Hokkaido without being seen to do so by any ships or aircraft in that area.

Suga also said that no damage had been reported as a result of the missile. Specifically he said that no potentially dangerous debris had fallen from the missile, confirming that no aircraft or ships in the region have been hit or damaged as a result of the launch and missile's flight.
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Caught between Trump and Kim, Japan is nervous and alone

North Korea’s nuclear test, by far its largest, came less than a week after it test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that flew over northern Japan, triggering a national text-message system known as the J-Alert.

For Japan, the security implications of both these tests are immense. The missile test showed that Kim Jong-un’s regime now has the capacity to strike the Japanese mainland with relative ease, while Pyongyang’s apparent grasp of hydrogen bomb technology means it could potentially vaporise a chunk of the continental US mainland. That changes not just the magnitude of the North Korean threat, but the very foundations of Japan’s national security.

The US’s commitment to protect Japan is currently based on the idea that the American mainland remains safe from North Korean retaliation. But faced with the reality that North Korea could soon be able to strike American soil, there is now a serious question mark over how willing the US will be to come to Japan’s aid while its own security is at risk.

This puts Japan in a highly difficult position. Its alliance with the US has been the bedrock of its foreign and security policies since at least the 1960s, and until now, any countermeasure against North Korea was based on the assumption that Washington will come to Tokyo’s help. In other words, Japan has for decades been able to invoke American military power as part of its own diplomatic clout. No more.
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North Korea quake 9.8 times more powerful than 5th: South Korean media

The "artificial quake" in North Korea on Sunday, thought to be its sixth nuclear test, was 9.8 times more powerful than the tremor from Pyongyang's fifth test, the South's Yonhap news agency reported citing the state weather agency.

It was "not only 9.8 times more powerful than the nuclear test conducted in September last year, but it is the most powerful", an official at the Korea Meteorological Administration told Yonhap.
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Why did sanctions against North Korea's missile program fail?

North Korea’s successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), allegedly with the capability to hit Alaska, is the latest in a series of significant advances for the country’s missile program.

North Korea has been seeking to develop long-range missile technology for over 20 years. For much of this period, the international community has been trying to stop that from happening.

My research on how states illegally obtain missile technologies and my experience conducting outreach related to UN sanctions give me some insight into the methods North Korea used to make illicit procurements and the limitations in using technology-based sanctions to prevent them.

Technology-based sanctions
In 2006 – following North Korea’s first nuclear test – the UN Security Council prohibited the “supply, sale or transfer” of “items, materials, equipment, goods and technology” that could contribute to the country’s missile program.

Efforts to prevent North Korea’s acquisition of missile technology by certain nations – notably the United States – were underway by the 1990s. However, the UN sanctions went further by placing standardized legal requirements on all states to prevent the development of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction programs.

These sanctions are “universal” – obligatory for all states around the world. However, each nation is responsible for implementation within its borders. Missile, nuclear and military technologies are regulated through national export control systems. Exports of certain goods and technologies need to be granted an export license by the government. This allows governments to do a risk assessment on transactions and minimize the diversions to undesirable uses, such as WMD programs or human rights abuses.
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