Trump: Biden is making Kim Jung Un feel threatened
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The former president said that the US-South Korea exercises jeopardizes the lives of 350,000 American troops in South Korea by provoking the DPRK.
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Then U.S. President Donald Trump, left, meets with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un at the Northern side of the border at the village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, on June 30, 2019 (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
On Wednesday, former US president Donald J Trump said the US was antagonizing the DPRK leader through the joint military exercises the US is conducting with South Korea.
"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 US and South Korea doing big training and air exercises together. He feels threatened," Trump said via the social media platform Truth Social.
Read more: South Korea, US agree to cooperate on North Korea
Trump described the exercises as "ridiculous" and "extremely expensive" saying that they jeopardize the lives of the 35,000 American troops in South Korea by provoking the DPRK.
Trump slammed the exercises with South Korea saying that they're too costly with the latter party only paying a small portion of the costs. He then lamented Biden's decision to annul the cost-sharing agreement Trump had made with South Korea.
Read more: US policy unchanged after DPRK declared itself nuclear state: WH
Last September, White House Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre announced that Washington will continue to seek a diplomatic solution to achieve the goal of demilitarizing the Korean Peninsula.
"[W]e've been very clear since the beginning of this President's administration that our policy remains unchanged," Jean-Pierre said. "The United States remains focused on continuing to coordinate closely with our allies and partners to address the threats posed by DPRK and to advance our shared objective of the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. That has not changed."
North Korea's Supreme People's Assembly passed a decree last year on the Nuclear Weapons Policy, which legalizes the leader's possession of nuclear weapons and gives him ultimate authority over the use of the nuclear arsenal.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stated during the event that no sanctions will force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear arsenal.
The conditions for the use of nuclear weapons include an attack or imminent threat of an attack on North Korea by an enemy country using nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction; an attack on the leadership and command of North Korea's nuclear forces by hostile nuclear or non-nuclear nations; and a destructive attack on the country's strategically important facilities, according to the Yonhap news agency.
![In a 2021 interview with Frontline by former US special representative James Jeffrey, he says he had "engaged with [HTS] via backchannels while serving in President Trump’s State Department. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)](https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2024/12/21/b4a69f2e-8682-43e4-9d37-49482b304ab3/3.png?v=2&format=webp "In a 2021 interview with Frontline by former US special representative James Jeffrey, he says he had \"engaged with [HTS] via backchannels while serving in President Trump’s State Department. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)")
