North Korea said on Friday it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean after US President Donald Trump vowed to destroy the reclusive country, with leader Kim Jong Un promising to make Trump pay dearly for his threats.
Kim did not specify what action he would take against the United States or Trump, whom he called a "mentally deranged US dotard" in the latest bout of insults the two leaders have traded in recent weeks.
Trump retaliated to Kim’s comment by tweeting:
Trump ordered new sanctions on Thursday that open the door wider to blacklisting people and entities doing business with North Korea, further tightening the screws on Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
Meanwhile, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un called Trump "mentally deranged" in a statement on Friday, adding that he would make the US President "pay dearly for his speech" at the United Nations.
Trump stopped short of going after Pyongyang's biggest trading partner, China, praising as "tremendous" a move by its central bank ordering Chinese banks to stop doing business with North Korea.
The additional sanctions on Pyongyang, including on its shipping and trade networks, showed that Trump was giving more time for economic pressures to weigh on North Korea after warning about the possibility of military action on Tuesday in his first speech to the UN.
Diplomacy Possible? ‘Why Not’, Says Trump
Asked ahead of a lunch meeting with the leaders of Japan and South Korea if diplomacy was still possible, Trump nodded and said, “Why not?”
North Korea under Kim Jong-Un’s leadership has launched dozens of missiles as it accelerates a program aimed at enabling it to target the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile.
Resisting intensifying international pressure, Pyongyang conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on 3 September and has launched numerous missiles this year, including two intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Trump said the new executive order “significantly expands our authority to target individual companies, financial institutions, that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea” and “will cut off sources of revenue that fund North Korea’s efforts to develop the deadliest weapons known to humankind.”
The US Treasury Department now had authority to target those that conduct "significant trade in goods, services or technology with North Korea."
Trump did not mention Pyongyang's oil trade. The White House, in a statement, later said North Korea's energy, medical, mining, textiles and transportation industries were among those targeted and that the US Treasury could sanction anyone who owns, controls or operates a port of entry in North Korea.
Four sources earlier told Reuters that China's central bank had told banks to strictly implement United Nations sanctions against North Korea.
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said banks doing business in North Korea would not be allowed to also operate in the United States.
No bank in any country should be used to facilitate Kim Jong-Un’s destructive behaviour. Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward, they can choose to do business with the United States or with North Korea, but not both.US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
Mnuchin said any sanctions issued under the executive order signed by Trump on Thursday would not target past behaviour.
The UN Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest this month capping fuel supplies to the isolated state.
European Union ambassadors have reached an initial agreement to impose more economic sanctions on North Korea, going beyond the latest round of UN measures, officials and diplomats said.
Trump warned the North Korean leader in his UN address on Tuesday that the United States, if threatened, would "totally destroy" his country of 26 million people.
‘Will Make Trump Pay Dearly For His Speech’: Kim Jong-Un
Meanwhile, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un said in a rare statement on Friday that the North will consider the "highest level of hard-line counter-measure in history" against the United States in response to US President Donald Trump's threat to "totally destroy" the North.
Calling Trump “mentally deranged” and his comments "the most ferocious declaration of a war in history," Kim said his UN speech confirmed that Pyongyang's nuclear programme has been "the correct path".
"His remarks ... have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last," Kim said in the statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency.
As a man representing the DPRK and on behalf of the dignity and honour of my state and people, and on my own, I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the US pay dearly for his speech.Kim Jong-Un
(This article has been edited for length)
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