President Donald Trump has included South Korea in his 12-day November trip to Asia, putting him mere miles away from North Korea leader Kim Jong Un, his partner in escalating rhetoric over the rogue country's nuclear program.
The White House announced the trip on Friday, which also includes stops in Japan, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines, along with Hawaii, from Nov. 3-14, 2017.
"The President's engagements will strengthen the international resolve to confront the North Korean threat and ensure the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," the White House said in a statement, singling out the rogue communist nation.
The announcement said Trump will also take part in "bilateral, multilateral, and cultural engagements — including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit."
Tensions between Trump and Kim reached new heights when the president said at the U.N. that he U.S. would "totally destroy" North Korea if forced to defend itself, mocking him as "Rocket Man."
Kim fired back with an angry response days later, The Washington Post reported.
"I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech," Kim said on the state-run news outlet Korean Central News Agency. "I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue. Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation."
South Korea's new president Moon Jae-in praised Trump's U.N. speech, calling North Korea's provocation "deplorable," The Associated Press reported.
The U.S. Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it would place sanctions on eight banks and 26 individuals with ties to North Korea in an effort to cut off financial support for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs, CNBC reported.
"This further advances our strategy to fully isolate North Korea in order to achieve our broader objectives of a peaceful and denuclearized Korean peninsula," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, per CNBC. "This action is also consistent with U.N. Security Council Resolutions."
On Sept. 11, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose a new set of sanctions against North Korea in a compromise with Russia and China that set a cap on crude and refined oil exports to the country at 8.5 million barrels per year, resulting in a 30 percent reduction, National Public Radio reported.
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