North Korea threatens to test hydrogen bomb in the Pacific

North Korea yesterday threatened to test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific.

‘Unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command’: Kim Jong-un delivers his rebuke to Donald Trump.

North Korea yesterday threatened to test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific after US President Donald Trump slapped new sanctions on Pyongyang.

Dictator Kim Jong-un yesterday became the first member of his three-generation Stalinist dynasty to directly rebuke a foreign leader when he called Mr Trump a “deranged dotard”.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly that Kim’s response “could mean the strongest hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific Ocean”.

No country has tested a ­nuclear device outside its own or allied territory. The US, Britain and France conducted tests in the waters of their Pacific colonies.

Mr Trump yesterday imposed new financial sanctions on North Korea, paving the way for harsh penalties on countries and companies, including China, that trade with the rogue regime.

The new US sanctions will also target banks that trade with Pyongyang.

“North Korea’s nuclear program is a grave threat to peace and security in our world, and it is unacceptable that others financially support this criminal, rogue regime,” Mr Trump said.

“Foreign banks will face a clear choice: do business with the United States or facilitate trade with the lawless regime in North Korea. The regime can no longer count on others to facilitate its trade and banking activities.”

US Globmaster transport unloads a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System at South Korea’s Kunsan Air Base.

In response to Mr Trump’s earlier declaration at the General Assembly that Washington was ready to “totally destroy” North Korea if forced to defend its allies, Kim said the US President would “pay dearly” for this threat and he was “thinking hard” about what action to take in retaliation and warned he would pursue “the highest level of hardline counter measure in history”.

“I will seriously and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire,” Kim said in comments recorded on Thursday and released yesterday. ­“Donald Trump has insulted me and my country in the eyes of the world, and made the most ­ferocious declaration of a war in history.”

He sought “to advise Trump to exercise prudence in selecting words, and to consider his audience” when making such a speech at the UN.

“Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say.”

Mr Trump was “unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country, for he is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire rather than a politician.”

Mr Trump fired back with a pre-dawn tweet: “Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!”

Signing the new sanctions in New York, Mr Trump claimed Chinese President Xi Jinping had ordered China’s banks to stop doing business with North Korean entities — a move that he welcomed as “very bold”, and “unexpected”.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchen denied that the expanded sanctions were targeted at China, which is North Korea’s main trading partner. “This action is directed at everyone (and is) in no way specifically directed at China,” Mr Mnuchin said.

The executive order signed yesterday by Mr Trump strengthens the authority of the US to target those who provide North Korea with goods, services or technology. He said it would give the US Treasury the “discretion to target any foreign bank knowingly facilitating specific transactions tied to trade with North Korea”.

The order also bans ships and aircraft that have visited North Korea from entering the US for 180 days.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop welcomed the new sanctions, saying it was essential that maximum economic pressure be brought against Pyongyang.

Mr Trump made the announcement as he met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in New York to discuss ways to increase pressure on the Kim regime, which has stepped up its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in defiance of the international community.

The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System lets rip at a live-firing exercise on Thursday.

The North has conducted six nuclear tests at Punggye-ri in the country’s mountainous north, the most recent earlier this month appearing to be a hydrogen bomb and in the past month has twice fired missiles over Japan.

In his own speech to the General Assembly, Mr Moon said more sanctions were needed to encourage Pyongyang to resume negotiations and that South Korea wanted a peaceful resolution.

“All of our endeavours are to prevent war from breaking out and maintain peace,” he said.

He warned that tensions could lead to dangerous misunderstandings and that the nuclear issue “needs to be managed stably so that tensions will not become overly intensified and accidental military clashes will not destroy peace.”

The UN Security Council earlier this month imposed its harshest sanctions yet on the North, capping fuel supplies to the rogue state, imposing bans on North Koreans working overseas and banning the country’s lucrative textile exports. That followed another round of fresh sanctions against Pyongyang in August.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the two new rafts of UN sanctions were starting to bite.

“We have some indications that there are beginning to appear evidence of fuel shortages,” he said. “I think what we’re seeing is a combined effect of these (fuel) inventories are now being exhausted, and the supply coming in has been reduced.”

Cameron Stewart is also US contributor for Sky News Australia