Trump exchanges school yard taunts with North Korean leader
US President Donald Trump has again traded barbs with North Korean leader, complaining about being called “old” by North Korea’s foreign ministry.
“Why would [North Korea leader] Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’ Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!” Trump wrote sarcastically on Sunday.
Trump, 71, made the remarks after attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam, part of his 12-day tour of Asia to rally pressure against Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
Shortly after the tweet, Trump told reporters in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi that friendship with Kim although “strange,” is still a “certain possibility.”
"If that did happen it would be a good thing for, I can tell you, for North Korea — but it would also be good for lots of other places and it would be good for the world," Trump said.
Earlier in the day, the North’s Foreign Ministry blasted “old lunatic” Trump for his aggressive remarks in South Korea last week, where he warned Pyongyang about the consequences of “underestimating” Washington.
“Reckless remarks by an old lunatic like Trump will never scare us or stop our advance,” the North’s foreign ministry said. “On the contrary, all this makes us more sure that our choice to promote economic construction at the same time as building up our nuclear force is all the more righteous, and it pushes us to speed up the effort to complete our nuclear force.”
In a separate interview, North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters that the country might conduct a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific in response to Trump’s speech.
"It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific," he warned.
Trump, a businessman-turned-president, has often deviated from diplomatic protocols and attacked leaders of other nations by calling them names.
He stirred controversy a few months back by deriding Kim as “rocket man,” a move that experts said was unbecoming of a president.
Kim responded by calling Trump a "dotard" – an arcane term for a senile or weak-minded elderly person—and a "gangster fond of playing with fire."
The war of words continued after Trump threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea as he gave his debut speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
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