Trump blames US for North Korea’s latest missile launch as tensions rise

Former President Donald Trump defended North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s most recent missile launch in a bizarre Truth Social post that blamed American officials. 

“Kim Jung Un of North Korea, who I got to know and got along with very well during my years as President, is not happy with the U.S. and South Korea doing big training and air exercises together," Trump posted on Truth Social.

"He feels threatened,” the former president continued, adding that South Korea “pays us very little to do these extremely expensive and provocative drills. It's really ridiculous."

“We have 35,000 in jeopardy soldiers there, I had a deal for full payment to us, $Billions, and Biden gave it away. Such a shame!!!” Trump added.

The key takeaway was not that this was another whiney anti-Biden comment aimed directly at Trump’s base, but rather a repudiation of the long-term geopolitical goals of the United States in the Korean Peninsula. 

Kim Jong Un should feel threatened because that’s the objective of the drills being held by the United States and its allies in the region, a fact the former president used to understand. 

Trump once threatened North Korea’s dictator with “fire and fury” but came to find a soft spot for Kim Jong Un after visiting North Korea in 2018. 

“I was really being tough—and so was he,” the former president said during a 2018 rally in West Virginia after his visit, “we would go back and forth.”

“And then we fell in love, okay? No, really—he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters,” Trump added... and maybe it's this touch of love that’s needed to cool the situation developing on the Korean Peninsula.

Since Joe Biden took office the United States has returned to its hardline, no-nonsense policies with Kim’s communist regime—and it resulted in a predictable, but unavoidable, escalation. 

“In recent weeks tensions have escalated between North Korea and South Korea… amid a series of provocations by Kim,” according to Insider’s Tom Porter. 

On February 18th, North Korea conducted a surprise test of its Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile, it's third in four months. 

The following day, Kim Jong Un’s sister and top North Korean official—Kim Yo Jong—issued a dire warning to those who would challenge her and her brother. 

“I warn that we will watch every movement of the enemy and take corresponding and very powerful and overwhelming counteraction against its every move hostile to us,”  Kim’s sister said in a statement released by North Korea's state-owned Korean Central News Agency. 

In response to the provocation, South Korean, Japanese, and American authorities held a joint military drill that featured stealth fighters and a B-1B Bomber according to Stella Kim and Leila Sackur of NBC News. 

It is unknown whether or not North Korea’s dictator felt threatened by the drills but one does wonder how Trump would have handled the situation, maybe a tender love letter from a close American friend is all Kim needs to avoid a global nuclear catastrophe.