TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Thursday (April 6) that he and United States President Donald Trump agreed in a telephone call that North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launch was “a dangerous provocation and a serious threat.”
Pyongyang test-fired a ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast on Wednesday (April 5), a day before the Trump-Xi summit, where North Korea’s increasingly defiant arms program was set to take center stage.
After the 35-minute talk with Trump, Abe told reporters that he was watching to see how China would respond to Pyongyang after President Xi Jinping meets with Trump at the U.S. leader’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Trump has repeatedly said China must do more to curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile development. On Sunday (April 2) he held out the possibility of using trade as a lever to secure Chinese cooperation while suggesting Washington might deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs on its own if need be.
