Trump downplays North Korea missile testing, vouches for Kim as a friend

President Trump on Friday downplayed the significance of recent missile testing by North Korea and vouched for the nation’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, calling him a “friend” who has a “great and beautiful vision for his country.”

In morning tweets, Trump acknowledged that the short-range ballistic missile tests violate U.N. sanctions on North Korea but said the testing did not violate the agreement signed by the two leaders last year at their Singapore summit, which focused on nuclear weapons.

“Chairman Kim does not want to disappoint me with a violation of trust, there is far too much for North Korea to gain — the potential as a Country, under Kim Jong Un’s leadership, is unlimited,” Trump wrote.

“Also, there is far too much to lose,” Trump continued. “I may be wrong, but I believe that Chariman (sic) Kim has a great and beautiful vision for his country, and only the United States, with me as President, can make that vision come true. He will do the right thing because he is far too smart not to, and he does not want to disappoint his friend, President Trump!”

The White House has had a muted response to the short-range ballistic missile tests conducted over the past week, including what the South Korean military described as the firing of “unidentified short-range projectiles” early Friday morning local time.

North Korea says its testing is a warning to South Korea, which is resuming joint military exercises with the United States later this month and is also acquiring American F-35 stealth fighter jets.

Until the tests conducted over the past week, Trump had regularly touted a lull of more than 18 months without a North Korean nuclear or long-range missile test as a chief achievement of his un­or­tho­dox outreach to Kim.

The recent launches were short-range weapons, not the more worrisome long-range weapons that could potentially deliver nuclear warheads to U.S. shores. Still, the missiles do have the range to reach targets in South Korea and nearby U.S. assets, raising the level of instability in the region and creating new hurdles for any future talks.

White House officials have also sought to tamp down the importance of the tests while arguing that Trump has made progress in his talks with Kim even as they appear stalled.

“I think that the president taking this really unusual step of meeting Kim Jong Un at the demilitarized zone on June the 30th, walking into North Korea, has once again opened the door for North Korea to make a strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons and walk through it, into a different future,” national security adviser John Bolton said in an interview with Fox Business earlier this week.

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