Two Japanese destroyers conducted exercises on Monday with the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group that is headed for waters off the Korean peninsula, sent by Trump as a warning to the North.
"This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not".
South Korea said in a statement Wednesday that unspecified parts of THAAD were deployed.
Mobilization of self-propelled artillery pieces which can reach Seoul and its adjacent areas indicated that Pyongyang seeks to demonstrate its readiness to attack the South if Washington stages a pre-emptive strike on the North, experts say.
The South's Yonhap news agency cited a government source as saying the exercise was the North's "largest ever" and was presumed to have been overseen by leader Kim Jong-Un.
About 8,000 police officers were mobilized and the main road leading up to the site in the southeast was blocked earlier Wednesday, Yonhap reported.
About 200 residents and protesters rallied in front of a local community centre, some hurling plastic water bottles at the vehicles.
The meeting - announced last week and requested by Senate leadership - comes amid the U.S. Navy's bilateral military exercises with South Korea and Japan, and North Korea's live-fire drills to celebrate the anniversary of its military's founding. An official from Seoul's Defence Ministry couldn't confirm such details.
The Pentagon said the deployment was a critical measure to defend South Korea and its allies against North Korean missile threats and it would complete it "as soon as feasible".
Its deployment is not part of the Vinson strike group, but its presence in the area is meant to send a message to North Korea, a U.S. Defense Department official told ABC News.
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An amendment revealed last week is meant to be a compromise for the most conservative members to agree to support the bill. The savings would fund tax cuts for wealthy Americans and corporations.
The US leader spoke about North Korea in telephone conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, the White House said.
While administration officials typically travel to the Capitol building to brief lawmakers on national security issues, on Wednesday the entire Senate will hop on a bus to the White House where four top officials will meet with them simultaneously.
Analysts warned against reading too much into the exercises with conventional weaponry, noting that North Korea's annual winter training cycle culminates in big exercises every year around this time.
"Judging from their recent words and deeds, policymakers in Pyongyang have seriously misread the United Nations sanctions, which are aimed at its nuclear/missile provocations, not its system or leadership", the newspaper said in an editorial.
As those drills continued, the USS Michigan arrived in the South Korean port of Busan on Tuesday, the U.S. Navy said.
South Korea's navy said it was conducting a live-fire exercise with US destroyers in waters west of the Korean peninsula and would soon join the carrier strike group approaching the region. He has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile and has said all options are on the table, including a military strike.
"China has a very, very important role to play" to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, Joseph Yun, the US special representative for North Korea policy, told reporters in Tokyo.
Pyongyang held a massive military parade on April 15 to mark the 105th birthday of late state founder Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader. He added that the UN Security Council must be prepared to impose new sanctions.
Tillerson will be "very vocal" about nations enforcing sanctions on North Korea, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
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