World fears US-DPRK insults could lead to real-world conflict

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Europe

Insults flew this week at the 2017 UN General Assembly. US President Donald Trump started by lashing out at Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader Kim Jong Un, and the situation only spiraled from there.

Responding to President Trump’s threat to "totally destroy" the DPRK, Kim Jong Un (whom Trump described as a "rocket man on a suicide mission") offered up his own carefully chosen words.

"The mentally deranged behavior of the US president, openly expressing on the UN arena the unethical will to ‘totally destroy’ a sovereign state…makes even those with normal thinking faculty reconsider discretion and composure."

Responding to this, the US president took to Twitter, saying: "Kim Jong Un…is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!"

The DPRK’s leader, in turn, threatened "the highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history."

The escalating rhetoric and personal insults flying between the two leaders is leaving some fearful that this war of words may turn into an actual war if tensions continue to mount.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the foreign ministers of China and Russia are among the leaders who have called for a rollback in the rhetoric. The situation, however, has only continued to worsen.

Trump challenged not only the DPRK this week, but also used strong words to criticize the leaders of Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.

Cuba’s foreign minister hit back on Friday, calling Trump’s UN speech "unacceptable and aggressive." The minister then turned to the problem of income disparity.

"On Tuesday, President Donald Trump came here to convince us that one of his purposes is to promote the prosperity of nations and persons. But in the real world, the wealth owned by eight men together is the equivalent to the wealth shared by 3.6 billion human beings who make up the poorest half of humanity.”

Some fear the next clash could come between Washington and Iran. Trump this week labeled the two-year-old nuclear agreement an embarrassment to his country and gave his strongest indication yet that the US may pull out.