US VP Pence assures Japan America is with ally '100 percent'

That's worth having deficits.

"W$3 e have plenty of reason to be frightened of Donald Trump's "America First" foreign policy, which doesn't serve Americans, much less anyone else around the world". And so we have as one of the possibilities a preemptive nuclear strike against North Korea.

After a two-month policy review, the Trump administration settled on a policy dubbed "maximum pressure and engagement", USA officials said Friday. Lean on China to turn off its life support to its neighbor, for another.

However, Trump has also shown willingness to link trade to other issues, saying he would cut a better trade deal with China if it exerts influence on North Korea.

It is the top USA state for per-capita foreign direct investment from Japan, including higher-technology and better-paying manufacturing jobs, said Victor Smith, Pence's commerce secretary, when he led the state. The high-profile failure came as the North tried to showcase its nuclear and missile capabilities around the birth anniversary of the North's late founder and as a USA aircraft carrier neared the Korean Peninsula.

Later Monday, Pence said in a joint statement alongside South Korean Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn that the United States' commitment to its ally is "iron-clad and immutable".

"We believe there is more China can do in terms of sanctions and other economic efforts".

Beijing sought Russian help in averting a crisis over North Korea last week, as concerns grow in China that Mr Trump is seeking to confront North Korea over its weapons programme.

That's because doing so risks weakening the USA stance on the issue of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and opens up the United States to similar foreign policy gambits from countries around the world seeking a sweeter economic relationship with the US.

A top White House foreign policy adviser on Sunday became the latest Trump official to warn that while diplomatic pressure was preferable, United States military action is very much on the table. "That is not going to instill confidence".

Pence on Monday had travelled to the tense zone dividing North and South Korea, where he warned North Korea's leaders that after years of testing the USA and South Korea with its nuclear ambitions, "the era of strategic patience is over". He walked within 100 yards of North Korean soldiers who took pictures of Pence and his entourage.

Another top Trump administration official, deputy national security adviser KT McFarland, also preached patience.

In the wake of North Korea's failed medium-range missile test this weekend, President Donald Trump is willing to consider ordering "kinetic" military action, including a sudden strike, to counteract North Korea's destabilizing actions in the region, said a person familiar with the White House's thinking.

Asked what North Korea must do, he repeated that "all options are on the table, and there they will remain".

White House officials say the meetings in Tokyo are meant to forge a framework for future discussions after the USA withdrew from a Pacific Rim trade pact. "It introduces a level of uncertainty and suggests that there are no principles to U.S. policy". That sent the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note to a five-month low. Since then, China has been most vocal in calling for their resumption.

"The discussion of it failing very early in launch, that's a common failure mode for North Korean missiles very early on in their development cycle when they are working out the bugs in the propulsion and guidance system", Schilling told AFP.

The possible cost of North Korean retaliation for any military action against its nuclear and missile complex - an artillery barrage targeting civilians in Seoul and thousands of United States troops south of the border - is just as painful as ever.

"If the United States goes on with their reckless option of using military means then that would mean from that very day, an all-out war", he said in an interview with broadcaster BBC in Pyongyang.