PALM BEACH, Fla. -- President Donald Trump said Tuesday that if North Korea tests intercontinental ballistic missiles, the U.S. will "deal with it."
North Korea has suggested it will use the end-of-year holiday season to deliver a "Christmas gift" to the U.S. after demanding that Washington make additional concessions as part of stalled nuclear talks between the two sides. Earlier this year, Kim Jong Un's regime set a Dec. 31 deadline for a breakthrough that has long seemed elusive.
"Oh, that's OK, we'll find out what the surprise is and we'll deal with it very successfully," Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach after a video conference with troops. "Everybody's got surprises for me, but let's see what happens. I handle them as they come along."
Trump said that Kim's threat might turn out to be a "nice present" on Christmas rather than a missile test, which would deliver another blow to the effort to broker a landmark nuclear pact with North Korea.
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"Maybe it's a nice present. Maybe it's a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test, right? I may get a vase. I may get a nice present from him. You don't know. You never know," Trump said.
Two test burns of a new liquid-fueled engine at North Korea's Sohae test stand in the past month have prompted speculation about the nature of the "Christmas gift" that Kim promised if nuclear talks with the Trump administration remained stalled. Satellite cameras in recent weeks have spotted preparatory work at several locations where North Korea assembled or tested missiles in the past.
North Korea has added a structure to a factory linked to the production of ICBMs, NBC News reported, raising concerns the country will resume testing weapons that can reach the U.S.
The commercial satellite images from Planet Labs show a temporary structure added to the site that can accommodate the raising of a launcher arm for such long-range missiles, according to NBC. The news report cited an analysis by Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
But the recent surge in activity also appears to confirm something that U.S. intelligence agencies have long suspected: Despite a self-imposed moratorium on testing its most advanced missiles over the past two years, North Korea has never halted its efforts to build powerful new weapons.
Indeed, Kim's scientists appear to have used the lull to quietly improve and expand the country's arsenal, U.S. and East Asian officials say.
U.S. analysts say the two tests at Sohae appear to reflect months of continued work on North Korea's arsenal of potent liquid-fueled missiles that already includes two ICBMs, the Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15, capable of striking the United States. But the country's scientists have demonstrated progress on other kinds of missiles, as well. In the months since a failed U.S.-North Korean summit in Vietnam, Pyongyang has tested five new short- and medium-range missiles, all of which use solid propellants. Solid-fueled missiles are more mobile and easier to hide compared with similar rockets that use liquid fuel.
One of the newly unveiled additions to North Korea's arsenal, the KN-23, is a highly maneuverable short-range missile that flies at low altitudes and is difficult to intercept. Another, the medium-range Pukguksong-3, can be launched from submarines.
"No one thinks they developed all these systems in a few months," Lewis said. Satellite photos and multiple tests -- many of them publicly announced and photographed -- have shown repeatedly that "North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities kept operating during the moratoria," he said.
"They have built up capabilities over time," Lewis said, "and they choose to reveal them when it's politically desirable."
A demonstration of any of these technologies would be intended in part to express frustration over the stalled nuclear talks and to prod the Trump administration into new concessions at the negotiating table. But implicit in any missile launch would be a larger message directed at Americans themselves, experts said.
"It would be a way of highlighting our vulnerability -- to show they have the range to reach us," said Robert Litwak, director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The same message, delivered in the form of back-to-back ICBM tests, helped lead the United States and North Korea to the brink of a crisis in 2017. Litwak said he worries that a new round of missile tests could be the start of a new escalatory cycle, with an uncertain outcome.
"We do not respond well to vulnerability," he said.
Trump has long touted his outreach to Pyongyang -- and his personal ties to Kim -- as one of his key foreign policy triumphs. Kim and Trump have met face-to-face three times -- a first for any sitting American president -- and the two regularly praise each other. But nuclear talks between the U.S. and North Korea have been stalled since the February summit between Trump and Kim fell apart in Vietnam.
3 NATIONS WEIGH IN
Also on Tuesday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in reiterated their commitment to ending North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. They made their remarks during a trilateral summit in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.
Li said the three agreed that "dialogue and consultation is the only effective way to solve the issues of Korea Peninsula."
"We three countries are willing to work together with the international community to solve the issue of Korea Peninsula in a political way," Li said Tuesday at a joint news conference after the meeting.
Moon said the sides agreed to support efforts to restart talks between Washington and Pyongyang so that "denuclearization and peace ... could actually advance."
Abe echoed that stance, criticizing North Korean missile launches as violating United Nations resolutions and seriously threatening regional security.
"For that purpose, it was confirmed that full implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions remains important, and we need to maintain the momentum of the U.S.-North Korea process," Abe said.
Although China is North Korea's most important source of investment, diplomatic support and economic aid, it has shown little success in persuading Kim Jong Un's government to abandon its nuclear arsenal. The U.S. has demanded that North Korea take steps toward complete denuclearization before any sanctions can be lifted, while China favors a multistage approach.
Information for this article was contributed by Jordan Fabian of Bloomberg News; by Joby Warrick and Simon Denyer of The Washington Post; and by Zhang Weiqun and Zeke Miller of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/25/2019