WASHINGTON/SEOUL--President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that all options are on the table for the United States to respond to North Korea's firing of a ballistic missile over northern Japan's Hokkaido island into the sea in a new show of force.
The missile test further increased tension in east Asia as U.S. and South Korean forces conducted annual military exercises on the Korean peninsula, angering Pyongyang which sees the war games as a preparation for invasion. North Korea has conducted dozens of ballistic missile tests under its leader, Kim Jong Un, in defiance of U.N. sanctions, but firing projectiles over mainland Japan is rare.
Trump, who has vowed not to let North Korea develop nuclear missiles that can hit the mainland United States, said the world had received North Korea's latest message "loud and clear".
"Threatening and destabilising actions only increase the North Korean regime's isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table," Trump said in a statement.
Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke and agreed that North Korea "poses a grave and growing direct threat" to the United States, Japan and South Korea, the White House said.
Investors flocked to safe-haven assets after the missile firing. The dollar fell to its lowest in more than 2-1/2 years against a basket of major currencies but then rebounded, while benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note yields fell and the price of gold hit more than a nine-month peak. U.S. stocks recovered from a sharply lower open.
Initial assessment indicates the North Korean missile was an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), the Pentagon said in a statement. Two U.S. officials said it appeared to be a KN-17, or Hwasong-12.
North Korea's Kim guided a launch of its Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile on Tuesday in a drill to counter the joint exercises by South Korean and U.S. militaries, the North's official KCNA news agency said on Wednesday. "The current ballistic rocket launching drill like a real war is the first step of the military operation of the KPA in the Pacific and a meaningful prelude to containing Guam," KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning said diplomacy was still Washington's preferred option with Pyongyang.
North Korea was defiant. "The U.S. should know that it can neither browbeat the DPRK with any economic sanctions and military threats and blackmail nor make the DPRK flinch from the road chosen by itself," North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun said, using the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The North vows to never give up its weapons programs, saying they are necessary to counter hostility from the United States and its allies. The United States has said before that all options, including military, are on the table, although its preference is for a diplomatic solution.
The United States is technically still at war with the North because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Relations worsened last year when North Korea staged two nuclear bomb tests.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the launch was "absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible" and that the Security Council now needed to take serious action. Saying "enough is enough," Haley said she hoped China and Russia would continue to work with the rest of the Security Council to discuss what more can be done about North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes.
The Security Council earlier this month unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea after it staged two long-range missile launches in July.
