​The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence warned that “North Korea continues to threaten to conduct a seventh nuclear test and the potential for heightened tension between Pakistan and India could increase the risk of nuclear escalation.”

 

Seventh nuclear test, huh? Seems like the June 12, 2018 “summit” (read: photo op) between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump didn’t go quite as planned. You know the one, where an American president met with a brutal dictator and relentlessly praised him as being just another “very, very talented leader” who “wants to do the right thing” while being “very open, very honorable,” and very “worthy.” Donald even complimented the “respect” Little Rocket Man receives from his people: “His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor.” < You better believe they show fervor. You don’t show fervor in North Korea you get your head chopped off. What is it with this man’s fascination with tyrants? >

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After the June 2018 spectacle, a second summit in February 2019 ended early with no deal on nukes and, four months later, Donald Trump swung by North Korea on his way home from the Group of 20 summit in Japan and stepped across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to step foot in North Korea… yet another visit that ended in no deal.

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However, it looks like Trump didn’t get the memo that the visits with his new buddy were a total bust because on his way home, he tweeted: “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” …which was a completely delusional thing to say. Right after Trump’s love fest, North Korea repeatedly fired short-range ballistic missiles and rockets, conducted two ground tests at one of its nuclear test sites, and increased production of long-range missiles and the fissile material used in nuclear weapons.

 

One year after the summit, The Wall Street Journal was reporting that “Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University nuclear scientist who has visited North Korea’s nuclear facilities, has estimated that North Korea might be capable of producing six or seven nuclear bombs a year. In total, Pyongyang could currently possess between 20 and 60 nuclear bombs, according to estimates by various security analysts.”

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In May 2020, Kim Jong-un made it clear he was evoking “new policies for further increasing” North Korea’s nuclear capabilities. In October, he threw a huge military parade to introduce North Korea’s new humongous intercontinental ballistic missile… a missile that military experts say, if truly operational, is one of the largest road-mobile ICBMs in the entire world.

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Fast-forward to January 2021, when he made clear where North Korea stands with the United States: “Our external political activities must focus on controlling and subjugating the United States, our archenemy and the biggest stumbling block to the development of our revolution.”  – then launched another ballistic missile, this time off its east coast.​​

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… and Kim Jong Un hasn’t slowed down one bit since then. The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment confirms that he “remains committed to increasing the number of North Korea’s nuclear warheads and improving its missile capabilities to threaten the Homeland and U.S. forces, citizens, and allies, and to weaken U.S. power in the AsiaPacific region, as evidenced by the pace of the North’s missile flight tests and the regime’s public touting of its uranium enrichment capabilities.”

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“North Korea is probably prepared to conduct a nuclear test and continues to flight test ICBMs so Kim can threaten the Homeland. Russia is increasingly supporting North Korea’s nuclear status in exchange for Pyongyang’s support to Moscow’s war against Ukraine.”