President Donald Trump along with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have vowed to take action against North Korea following another missile launch test last week.
“I completely agreed with President Trump that we, too, have to take further action. We will proceed with concrete actions to heighten the system and capabilities for defense,” Abe told reporters following the conversation Monday, according to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun.
As written for Breitbart by Frances Martel:
In a readout of the call, the White House confirmed that “President Trump and Prime Minister Abe committed to increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea, and to convincing other countries to follow suit,” adding that Trump “reaffirmed our ironclad commitment to defend Japan and the Republic of Korea from any attack.”
“Japan and the United States have made efforts to resolve the North Korean issue peacefully, but North Korea has trampled down all those efforts. The international community, including China and Russia, must take this undeniable fact seriously and heighten pressure,” Abe affirmed following the call, adding that more joint military exercises between the two countries could also be used as a further response to North Korea. Asahi cites the Japanese government confirming that the two leaders spoke for 52 minutes.
The conversation followed another test of North Korea’s Hwasong-14 missile, believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which, if successfully deployed, could hit the United States. The Trump administration replied quickly with widespread condemnation of North Korea’s largest trading partner, China, calling on sanctions to limit North Korea’s ability to fund the dangerous missile program. North Korea’s state media threaten to deploy nuclear weapons towards major American population centers on a nearly weekly basis.
“I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk,” President Trump wrote on his Twitter account this weekend. “We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!”
‘Ironclad’: In Nearly Hour-Long Phone Call, Japan’s Abe Stands with Trump on North Korea