The leaders of the US and South Korea are “ready for something North Korea does,” US President Joe Biden mentioned on Sunday, amid rumors that North Korea might take a look at one other nuclear weapon after a five-year break.
“We have talked by means of how we would reply to no matter they accomplish that I’m not involved, if that is what you are suggesting,” Biden informed a reporter at a joint press convention with South Korea’s newly-elected President Yoon Suk Yeol.
The dialogue additionally included beginning “joint drills to organize for a nuclear assault,” Yoon mentioned.
Message for Kim Jong Un is ‘Howdy’
On the second day of Biden’s go to to South Korea, the US president additionally visited Osan Air Base the place US and South Korean troops are monitoring potential threats from Pyongyang.
When requested by a reporter if he had a message for the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Biden mentioned his message was “Howdy. Interval.”
North Korea has amped up its missile checks in current months, largely ignoring warnings from the West. The White Home beforehand warned that the North Korean regime would possibly take a look at missiles or weapons throughout Biden’s Asian tour as a “provocation.”
Hyundai guarantees to fund electrical automobile manufacturing facility in Georgia
Biden additionally met with the top of the South Korea’s car-making large Hyundai as part of his effort to deepen financial ties between US corporations and US allies in Asia. Hyundai has pledged to speculate $10 billion (some €9.5 billion) within the US. Greater than half of the funds will go into an electrical automobile manufacturing facility within the US state of Georgia.
Biden (r) met with Hyundai CEO Euisin Chung in Seoul
Beforehand, Biden toured a Samsung semi-conductor plant he says would function a mannequin for a brand new Samsung facility in Texas.
With the US going through stress from Russia and China, Biden mentioned Asia was a key battleground within the worldwide “competitors between democracies and autocracies.”
“We talked in some size in regards to the want for us to make this bigger than simply the US, Japan, and Korea, however the whole Pacific and the South Pacific and Indo-Pacific. I feel this is a chance,” Biden mentioned.
Biden to fulfill Quad leaders in Tokyo
The US president then flew to Japan the place he is because of meet the leaders of India and Australia on Tuesday. Washington, New Delhi, Canberra and Tokyo are members of the Quad — a safety alliance broadly seen as a approach for Washington to test China’s rising affect.
South Korea’s Yoon has hinted at working with the Quad extra intently, though there have been presently no plans for Seoul to hitch the alliance.
dj/wd (AFP, AP, Reuters)