Trump Just Warned That The U.S. Military Is "Locked & Loaded" On North Korea

Trump Just Warned That The U.S. Military Is "Locked & Loaded" On North Korea


As the world watches, Trump keeps tweeting. Now, a Trump tweet has further escalated tensions with North Korea, as the president has directly said that American military systems are cocked and ready to react to any North Korean threat.

"Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely.  Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!" Trump wrote in a tweet early on Friday morning. This is building on increasingly war-like rhetoric he's been using as regards the so-called hermit kingdom over the last couple of days, starting with the speech when he said that he would meet any North Korean threat with "fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before." Various White House staff members were reportedly caught off guard by the president's supposedly improvised remark, but Trump has not backed down from it.

This latest tweet combined with the previous speech will certainly not do anything to calm the world's fears of an impending nuclear war between two leaders who are seen as irrational and reactive. Kim threatened to launch missiles at Guam, a strategically important U.S. territory in the Pacific. While presidents before him have endeavored to downplay such threats, Trump has responded in kind — now, multiple times.


Trump's latest tweet offers a lot to unpack on several fronts. By using the term "military solutions," Trump doesn't explicitly say anything about nuclear weapons, although some observers will certainly take it as such. There has already been debate about what "fire and fury" means specifically, and this tweet surely will not dampen that.