WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (KUNA) -- US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said Sunday that the US has "many military options" for dealing with the North Korea threat and that President Donald Trump "wanted to be briefed on each of them." Trump met with his national security team to discuss the latest provocation on the Korean peninsula following North Korea's successful conducting of a test of a hydrogen bomb that can be loaded into intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
In a statement following the meeting, Mattis said: "We made clear that we have the ability to defend ourselves and our allies - South Korea and Japan - from any attack. And our commitments among the allies are ironclad." He warned that "any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam, or our allies will be met with a massive military response - a response both effective and overwhelming." The defense chief stressed that the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "should take heed the United Nations Security Council's unified voice, all members unanimously agreed on the threat North Korea poses, and they remain unanimous in their commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula." "We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country - namely, North Korea. But as I said, we have many options to do so," Mattis remarked.
Meanwhile, State Department spokesperson Heather Nuaert tweeted that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson "is making calls to counterparts in region following North Korea's," indicating that he spoke this morning with his South Korean counterpart.
Earlier today, Trump tweeted that the U.S. "is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea." For his part, Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin told Fox News that he is "going to draft a sanctions package to send to the president for his strong consideration, that anybody that wants to do trade or business with them would be prevented from doing trade or business with us." "We are going to work with our allies. We'll work with China. But people need to cut off North Korea economically. This is unacceptable behavior," he added. (end) si.gb