Donald Trump: US nuclear arsenal '˜far stronger than ever before'

President Trump said he would meet North Korean threats with 'fire and fury'. Picture: Getty Images

In a series of early-morning tweets today, Mr Trump reaffirmed his threat from a day earlier by reposting video of him warning that Pyongyang would be “met with fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it made more threats to the US Then he said that his first order as president had been to “renovate and modernize” the US nuclear arsenal.

“Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!” Mr Trump tweeted.

It wasn’t immediately clear what evidence the president had, if any, to support his claim about the nuclear force. The White House wouldn’t say, other than to point to an executive order Trump signed in his first days in office commissioning a review to ensure the US nuclear deterrent is “modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready” and tailored for 21st century threats.

Donald Trump threatens North Korea with '˜fire and fury'

The White House has not detailed any findings from that evaluation. A modernization effort started by former President Barack Obama is in the early stages, but the force is essentially unchanged from the way Trump inherited it on Jan. 20.

Stephen Schwartz, an independent analyst of nuclear weapons issues, called the boast “patently absurd.” He wrote on Twitter that “literally nothing has happened in the last 201 days to increase the overall power of the US nuclear arsenal.”

Only hours before Trump’s tweets, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged calm and said Americans should have “no concerns” despite the exchange of threats between the president and North Korea. Aboard his plane as he flew home from Asia, Tillerson insisted the developments didn’t suggest the US was moving closer to a military option for dealing with the crisis.

“Americans should sleep well at night,” Tillerson said. He added: “Nothing that I have seen and nothing that I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours.”

The mixed messages from Tillerson and Trump put the onus on the North Koreans to decide how to interpret the latest missives from the US

In more tranquil terms than Trump, Tillerson sought to explain the thinking behind Trump’s warning. He said the president was trying to send a strong and clear message to North Korea’s leader so that there wouldn’t be “any miscalculation.”

The global stockpile of nuclear weapons. Picture: PA

“What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un would understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Tillerson said. “I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime on the US’s unquestionable ability to defend itself.” He said the US “will defend itself and its allies.”

The comments put Tillerson once again in the role of translating the president’s aggressive rhetoric into more diplomatic terms, and of working to minimize the chances of public panic. In fact, Tillerson argued that North Korea’s escalating threats indicated it was feeling the pressure from a successful US strategy.

Tillerson spoke to reporters as he returned from Malaysia to Washington, stopping along the way in Guam. Hours earlier, North Korea’s army had said in a statement it was exploring plans for attacking the tiny U.S. territory, which houses U.S. military bases and is a common refueling stop for US government aircraft traversing the Pacific Ocean.

Tillerson said he never considered re-routing his trip from Malaysia so as to avoid stopping in Guam. Though he insisted there was no imminent threat, he noted that even if there were, “the North Korean missile capability can point in many directions, so Guam is not the only place that would be under threat.”

Though it’s extremely unlikely the North would risk annihilation by pre-emptively attacking American citizens, the escalating rhetoric has heightened concern that a miscalculation could spiral out of control and lead to military conflict - a concern especially acute in Guam, residents of the territory said.

At least one prominent lawmaker felt Trump wasn’t bluffing with his threat. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee, told CBS’ “This Morning” that Trump had “basically drawn a red line” by saying Pyongyang can’t ever have a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the U.S.

“He’s not going to let that happen,” Graham said. “He’s not going to contain the threat. He’s going to stop the threat.”

Tillerson, who spent the past days in Asia working on the North Korea conflict, said he didn’t believe a new diplomatic strategy was needed. To the contrary, he said the latest threat from the North suggested the current strategy was working. After months of frustration over China’s reluctance to pressure Pyongyang economically, the U.S. on Saturday secured a unanimous U.N. Security Council vote to authorize sweeping new sanctions that target one-third of the North’s exports.

“The pressure is starting to show,” Tillerson said. “I think that’s why the rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang is beginning to become louder and more threatening.”