What Can the President Do About North Korea?

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What Can Trump Do About North Korea? His Options Are Few and Risky
By DAVID E. SANGER
JULY 4, 2017

When President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Twitter in early January that a North Korean test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States “won’t happen!” there were two things he still did not fully appreciate: how close Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, was to reaching that goal, and how limited any president’s options were to stop him.

The ensuing six months have been a brutal education for President Trump. With North Korea’s launch on Tuesday of what the administration confirmed was an intercontinental ballistic missile, the country has new reach. Experts said the North Koreans had crossed a threshold — if just barely — with a missile that could potentially strike Alaska.

Mr. Kim’s repeated missile tests show that a more definitive demonstration that he can reach the American mainland cannot be far away, even if it may be a few years before he can fit a nuclear warhead onto his increasingly powerful missiles . . . .

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