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“I respect the fact that I believe he is starting to respect us,” Trump said of Kim at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Tuesday evening.

North Korea Says It Tested a Hydrogen Bomb Meant for Missiles

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea carried out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test in an extraordinary show of defiance against President Trump on Sunday, saying it had detonated a hydrogen bomb that could be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The test, which the North called a “complete success,” was the first to clearly surpass the destructive power of the bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

Mr. Trump threatened last month to bring “fire and fury” to North Korea if it continued to threaten the United States with nuclear missiles, but the country and its leader, Kim Jong-un, has appeared unmoved, with the test on Sunday preceded by the launch last week of a ballistic missile over Japan into the north Pacific.

“North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test,” Mr. Trump said in an early-morning post on Twitter. “Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States.”

He posted again a few minutes later: “North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.”
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The announcement from North Korea came hours after the country declared that it had developed a hydrogen bomb that could fit into the warhead of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Still, it was unclear whether the North had in fact detonated such a weapon, a far more powerful type of nuclear device than the atomic bombs it has tested in the past. And analysts were skeptical that Pyongyang had really developed the capability to mount one on an ICBM.

The United States Geological Survey estimated that the tremor set off by the blast, detected at 12:36 p.m. at the Punggye-ri underground test site in northwestern North Korea, had a magnitude of 6.3.

The South Korean Defense Ministry’s estimate was much lower, at 5.7, but even that would mean a blast “five to six times” as powerful as the North’s last nuclear test, a year ago, said Lee Mi-sun, a senior analyst at the South Korean Meteorological Administration.

“North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.”

Lord Dampnut sez: North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States... Pyongyang has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success... South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!"

Trump considering ending South Korea trade pact

President Trump is seriously considering withdrawing from the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), sources familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Administration sources have cautioned that no final decision has been made, but the leaking of these deliberations has startled many in the U.S. business and pro-trade communities, who were under the impression that KORUS withdrawal was not in the cards for 2017.

Why this matters: More than $100 billion of annual trade between U.S. and Korea in goods — and billions more in services — hangs in the balance as Trump weighs this decision. Withdrawing from the trade deal would also damage relations between the U.S. and a key ally in Asia at the same moment the North Korean threat is escalating to historic proportions. [Ya think?]