President Donald Trump said Sunday that the North Korean government has no choice but to give up its nuclear weapons programs or risk “losing everything” if the regime ramps up its hostilities again.
Trump, in addressing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said that the country must denuclearize after Pyongyang announced it had carried out a “successful test of great significance.”
“Kim Jong Un is too smart and has far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way. He signed a strong Denuclearization Agreement with me in Singapore,” Trump said on Twitter, referring to his first summit with Kim in Singapore in 2018.
“He does not want to void his special relationship with the President of the United States or interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election in November,” he added.
North Korea said Sunday that it carried out a “very important test” at its long-range rocket launch site that it reportedly rebuilt after having partially dismantled it at the start of denuclearization talks with the United States last year.
Pyongyang has been pushing the Trump administration to make major concessions in Washington’s ongoing economic sanctions regime employed as a means of pressuring Kim to give up his nuclear weapons.
The North had made some concessions of its own, such as they were, including destroying a nuclear test sight many analysts said had become useless anyway.
But no progress has been made to convince Kim to dismantle his nuclear program.
The announcement comes amid further dimming prospects for a resumption of negotiations, with Pyongyang threatening to seek “a new way” if it fails to get major U.S. concessions by year’s end.
North Korea has said its resumption of nuclear and long-range missile tests depends on the United States.